


Straight Up With A Twist

by wyntereyez



Series: Talk to the Hand [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Gender Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-20
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyntereyez/pseuds/wyntereyez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor settles into his new job and gets a BFF. Rose gets abducted by aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Doctor vs. the Male Ego

**Author's Note:**

> This one uses the 'hurt/comfort' cliche. Sort of. It's so brief, you may miss it if you blink.

**Part I — The Doctor vs. the Male Ego**

“She calls me ‘Mummy!’” The voice in her ear is part petulant demand for attention, part genuine distress. Rose debates ignoring it so she can finish up her report for Torchwood, but she knows the longer she ignores him, the louder and more demanding he’ll become. Sometimes, the Doctor needs more attention than a small child (which he is, in a way, being only about a month old.) Rose saves what she’s working on and shuts down the computer. She has the feeling she won’t be getting back to work on it any time soon.

She turns towards him, watching him pace back and forth across the small living room. They really need to hurry up and find a bigger flat, she thinks. Rose closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Who calls you Mummy?” she asks, wondering if she’ll regret it.

His hair is in tufts where he’s been tugging at it, and his clothing (jeans and a T-shirt, she’s relieved to note) is a little more rumpled than usual. “The TARDIS coral!” he cries. “I was able to link with her today, and she called me ‘mummy.’” He flops dramatically onto the recliner and watches her from beneath hooded eyes. 

Ooh. He’s working himself into one of his Oncoming Pouts. She licks her lips in anticipation. She loves his sexy little pouts — and helping him work through them is even more fun. It’s going to be a loooong while before she can get back to her Torchwood report…

Rose moves to the recliner, taking a seat on the broad arm. He automatically puts his arm around her waist. She reaches forward and smoothes down his hair. “Maybe because you love her and take such good care of her?” she says soothingly. _And cuddle her and coo at her like she’s an actual baby,_ Rose doesn’t add. She finds it adorable, and she doesn’t want to make him so embarrassed that he stops. “You are,” she purrs, “very good at attending to one’s needs.”

“S’pose,” he mutters, without turning to look at her. Rose frowns; maybe she’s misread him, and he doesn’t want her attention after all. But then he rests a hand on her thigh and strokes it absently. His nails, she notices, are a pearlescent pink, and very well manicured — unlike her own, which are uneven from bites and breaks attained in the line of duty. Torchwood is hell on nails.

“Would it make you feel better if I called you ‘Daddy?’” she asks huskily.

He pulls back, regarding her with wide, startled eyes. “Incest fantasies, Rose? Really?”

Well, that kills the mood. And inspires images Rose is going to have to Retcon from her brain as soon as possible. “Ugh,” she grumbles, and is about to get back to her feet when the Doctor abruptly grabs her and pulls her into his lap, arms wrapped tightly around her and chin resting atop her head. She shifts around until she’s leaning comfortably against his chest, listening to his single human heart. “That’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?” she asks softly.

She feels his sigh ruffle her hair. “It’s work,” he finally admits. She blinks in surprise. Two weeks ago, he’d been hired by the weekly British gossip rag _The Star,_ writing two online columns a week and one long article for the printed magazine. Despite having no experience whatsoever in the world of gossip, his charisma and silver tongue has charmed both the magazine’s editors and the celebrities he interviews. And his research skills are impeccable; sniffing out news is nothing to someone who’d once solved the mysteries of the universe. His column, ‘Talk to the Hand,’ is known for being brutally honest and fair. Even his editors admire him; he won’t fudge facts to create a scandal, but he can present the truth in a way that readers find riveting.

His only flaw is that his writing is as wordy as his gob; he tends to run off on tangents that seem relevant to him, or drop names that no one on this planet — or universe - would have ever heard of. Rose helps edit his articles when she has time, but it’s an arduous task, made worse by the way he flinches whenever any of his precious words are sacrificed. “Are they getting on your case about article length again?”

“No… though they’ve been trying to find me a part-time assistant for that. I’ve already gone through two.”

That was news to her. “When did they decide this?” she demands. And here she’s been editing his articles and neglecting her Torchwood reports…

“Today.”

“You went through two assistants _today_?”

He shrugs. “It takes a special kind of person to be my… assistant,” he says, kissing the top of her head. “Not everyone’s cut out for it.”

Rose suppresses a grin. She suddenly gets the feeling his style of reporting is more… vigorous than most. Probably a lot of running. And possibly even aliens; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d uncovered alien plots while reporting in the rich and famous. “Is that what’s bothering you? I’m sure you’ll find someone suitable. It can’t be as difficult as finding someone to see the universe with. ”

She hears the smile in his voice as he murmurs into her hair, “I’ve already got someone in mind for that position, anyway.” 

She shivers in anticipation. It will be at least a year before the baby TARDIS will be able to travel, and even then the trips will be short, but she’ll be out among the stars again, at the Doctor’s side. She can’t wait. 

“Greg spoke to me today.” Greg Johnson is the editor-in-chief of The Star. “He wants me to do another column.”

“Oh?” For most people, three columns and an article a week would be arduous. The Doctor could do three times that with no difficulty. He’s the fastest typist she’s ever seen, and he never seems to suffer from Writer’s Block, typos, or grammatical errors. She knows he can handle the extra work without difficulty. So, what was the problem?

“One of the writers is leaving. Greg asked me to take over his column.” He swallows. “It’s… the homosexual lifestyle column.”

This world is far more blasé about homosexual couples. It has gone through the same history of bigotry as her own world, but in the past five years, there has been a level of acceptance that far surpasses what her home universe had achieved.

Still, it’s odd… The Doctor barely grasps the concept of the heterosexual human lifestyle, though Rose is doing her best to teach him. She is not going to educate him on playing for the other team! “Why you? I mean… this isn’t really your thing. Right?”

“Because of my ‘experience,’ Greg said. When I asked him what he meant…” The Doctor yanks his hair in agitation. “Rose, they think I’m gay!”

Rose can relate, having once thought much the same thing. She suspects he must have fanboyed one too many male celebrities within the editor’s hearing. The cosmetics probably don’t help either, but at least he hasn’t gone to work in women’s clothing. Yet.

“He wants me to act the part,” he continues. “Go to pubs and strip joints, offer advice on clothing, share my experiences… Beyond a kiss from Captain Jack, I don’t have any experiences!” he splutters indignantly. “Though that was a good kiss, if I do say so myself,” he preens. “Not bad for someone with no experience.”

She shrugs. It doesn’t seem like a horrible problem to her. “Just tell him you’re not gay,” she says. “Problem solved.”

“I did! He didn’t believe me. He just got all sympathetic and told me he understood if I couldn’t handle the pressure of having another column to write, and I didn’t need to make excuses. So I told him that wasn’t it, that of course I could handle another column, easy-peasy, and… next thing I know, I have another column due in a week.”

Rose groans inwardly at how easily the Doctor has been manipulated. He’s still new when it comes to human emotional responses, and implying that he was incapable of something… well, what male ego would stand for that? She had hoped that his alien nature and his streak of Donna-ness would temper that impulse.

Transvestite tendencies and PMT aside, it appears the Doctor is all man, after all. “You’re brilliant,” she murmurs, intentionally stroking that male ego to soothe his ruffled feathers. “You’ll think of some way to get out of it.”

He just laughs softly and tightens his grip around her.

It isn’t until later, as she’s sliding into bed next to the Doctor’s recumbent form, that she realizes how neatly she’s been played. He’d steered the conversation towards a silly issue, exaggerating until it seemed the world’s fate hinged upon him proving he was a manly man, as straight as they came. If one ignored the cross-dressing.

He’d deflected her from what was really bothering him: he was lonely. In this world, all he has are Rose and the rest of the Tylers. He has love, he has his adopted family, but he needs _friends_. He’s a social butterfly, desperately needing to surround himself with people who like him. And today’s ‘crisis’ seems to have driven home just how different he is from everyone else. How _alien_. And that inherent strangeness will make it much harder for him to find people he can connect with.

Rose shifts close to him, until she can feel his human-warm flesh against hers. He automatically leans into her, craving contact even in sleep. 

~oOo~

Usually, he can’t wait to start the day. He tends to wake up before Rose, his hybrid body needing only about half as much sleep as she. Sometimes he’ll stay in the flat and read until she awakens, making breakfast for them and discussing their plans for the day. Other days, the domesticity will be too much for him and he’ll head towards Torchwood, spending a few hours with the growing coral before heading off to _The Star_ ’s offices.

Today, though, the flat seems unnaturally silent, and he can’t concentrate on his book. Worse, he doesn’t want to see the coral; he’s not sure if he can handle being called ‘Mummy’ right now, and he doesn’t want the infant TARDIS to pick up on his distress.

And there’s a lot of it. Rose is right (though the Doctor is unaware that she has worked this out) — he does need friends. He loves Rose fiercely, but they can’t spend all of their time together. She has a life she built while they were separated, and he doesn’t want her to change it just for him. And he is accustomed to people responding to his charm and following him into unusual and often dangerous situations, trusting him implicitly to get them through alive and, most of all, enjoying every minute of it. 

His experience with the two potential assistants yesterday has shown him that he’s lost something, and it isn’t just a second heart. His somewhat hands-on research method frightened away the first assistant, and the second hadn’t spoken English very well and had almost had a mental breakdown trying to transcribe the Doctor’s babbling.

He needs someone who can not only keep up with him, both physically and vocally, but can also handle the occasional alien encounter his research sometimes turns up. And he needs someone who will enjoy it, who will laugh about it with him later. It just isn’t as much fun alone.

The Doctor sets his book aside with a sigh of frustration. He needs to get out of the flat, to burn off this restless energy and clear his mind. So he grabs his flat keys and spends the next few hours riding the underground to random locations all over London, courting disaster by sitting in cars with passengers of questionable intent and traversing dark, empty stretches of city to reach the next station.

Danger, human-style. He misses traveling the universe. It was a thousand times more dangerous, but at least it was exciting. Never gave him so much time to feel lonely. Never dull enough that his biggest problem was figuring out how to get out of writing a column he was completely unsuited for.

Speaking of which… his sense of time is telling him it was almost time for him to head for the office. He sighs and hops on the train that will take him closest to the office, and sets his mind on how to wriggle out of his new task while still saving face. Maybe if he tells them he is with a woman? He’d somehow left that out of his ‘not gay’ protestations the previous day.

He heads straight for Greg’s office. His secretary waves the Doctor in, and he enters to find the editor-in-chief speaking with Kelly Saunders, who is in charge of _The Star_ ’s fashion aspect. (The Doctor had debated working that angle as well, but decided to start off with a light work load and settled with celebrity gossip).

As always, his eyes fasten on the photo of Rose, taken by a paparazzo and blown up to poster size for display, like a hunter’s trophy. It’s hard not to stare at it; it’s been given a place of honor right over Greg’s chair.

They’d caught her on a bad day.

A _really_ bad day — she looked sort of like what the Bride of Frankenstein (well, technically, Frankenstein’s _monster_ ) would look like if she’d caught the Bubonic Plague. One of these days, the Doctor is going to ask her the story behind it.

“Good morning, John,” Greg says pleasantly, and Kelly echoes him. There is no ‘Doctor’ here; in this shallow world where looks got a person further than brains, a writer with the title of ‘Doctor’ would annoy or intimidate the celebrities.

“I don’t think I’m the best person to take over Gareth’s column,” he says. “I’ve never even been to a same-sex pub or club; I wouldn’t know where to begin writing about something like that!”

Greg considers. “A fresh perspective might be just what the column needs,” he muses. “Gareth was very confident in his sexuality; it might have been intimidating to readers still coming to terms with it. A column about your first time and what you learned to do or not do in a club could boost readership. Do you have a partner to take with you, or are you single?”

“I have a girlfriend,” the Doctor says, wincing inwardly at using such a juvenile term to describe a much deeper, more mature relationship. But he doesn’t think gender-neutral terms like ‘partner,’ ‘lover,’ ‘soul-mate,’ or ‘companion with benefits’ will help his case.

“Oh?’ Greg and Kelly exchanges glances. Kelly tries to hide a grin. 

“Yes! And she’s definitely female, with the breasts and estrogen and everything,” the Doctor continues emphatically. “I know; I’ve looked. A _lot_.” 

“John, if you don’t want to do the column, just come right out and say it-“ Greg begins.

“I’m dating Rose Tyler!” he blurts out. Oh, now he’s done it. He’s just told London’s largest gossip rag that he’s with one of their favorite subjects.

Early on, he and Rose had decided to keep their relationship out of the public eye, at least until the Doctor has managed to establish a life for himself in Pete’s World. Except for the Stone — Jones wedding incident (which no one remembers anyway, thanks to the wonders of Retcon) they’ve managed to successfully keep the press unaware, thanks to the use of holographic projectors ‘borrowed’ from Torchwood, as well as disguises when necessary. It appears that they’ve been extremely successful — and now the Doctor has ruined it, all because he needs to prove he’s a Real Man.

Sometimes, being human _sucks_.

Rather than gasping in shock at this revelation, Greg merely raises an eyebrow, and glances between the Doctor and the poster he’s focusing on. “Are you,” he says, amused. 

The Doctor blinks, confused by the editor’s indifferent attitude to what should have been front page news. Then he realizes: his gaze has been on the picture of Rose the entire time. Greg just assumes that, in his desperation, the Doctor said the first name that came to mind, the name of the woman he’d been staring at. If his gaze had been a few centimeters to the right — no, that was no good, that was a picture of Johnny Depp, and while he was dreamy, saying his name wouldn’t have helped the Doctor any — okay, if his gaze had been on the poster to the left of Rose, Greg probably assumes he’d have said Angelina Jolie. Which also wouldn’t have helped, really, given how her preferences are different in this universe.

Later, the Doctor will realize that Greg had offered several openings for him to refuse the column without consequence. He’s too riled up to realize that now, however. “I can prove it! We can do dinner Friday. Me, Rose, you and your, er, wife? Significant other? You have one, right? Anyway, bring her, him, or it along, and I’ll introduce you to Rose and prove that she and I are shagging! Er, not that we’ll demonstrate, of course — it won’t be that kind of restaurant.” A thought strikes him. “Do those kinds of restaurants exist? They’re all the rage on Orbais VI, but I don’t think they’ve caught on here. Horrible things, sextaurants. Everyone’s naked and there’s nowhere to properly hide a sonic screwdriver! And the food is all suggestively shaped and chock full of aphrodisiacs — which it turns out I’m allergic to — and then —“

“John?” Greg says, his voice strained, before the Doctor could describe in detail just what happens in Orbais VI restaurants. “If it means that much to you, I’ll go. To a nice, ordinary restaurant. Along with my _wife_. She’s been nagging me for a night out, anyway.”

Kelly is watching the exchange with evident amusement. “Can I go, too? This could be amusing.”

And before the Doctor quite realizes it, he’s agreeing that he and Rose will spend Friday night with several people they barely know in one of the city’s most expensive restaurants. Without even asking if Rose has plans.

Oh, well… she won’t mind too much, right? He’s sure she’ll do it, so long as it helps him get out of writing the column.

Later, the Doctor will also realize that he’d never come out and actually said he didn’t want to do the column, only that he isn’t suited to it. It’s something that will come back to bite him in the bum later.

Kelly follows him out, stopping him with an impatient tug on his sleeve. “If it’s about the column,” he begins.

“Actually, I have someone in my department that might make a good assistant for you.”

“Can this one speak English?” he mutters. He can’t wait until the new TARDIS’s translation circuits grow in.

“All the time,” Kelly says wryly. “C’mon, she’s in my office sorting through paperwork if you’d like to meet her.”

The Doctor follows reluctantly. “Is she any good?” He knows he’s not high on the priority list for getting an assistant, and, as a result, he hasn’t exactly been getting the pick of the litter. At the moment, he’ll settle for a small measure of competence.

Kelly smiles faintly. “She’s good, yeah. She types nearly as fast as you, and there’s no faulting her dictation skills. Her spelling and grammar are good, so her proofreading skills are more than adequate. She can even think for herself,” she says, as if this is a rare commodity. 

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “So what’s wrong with her?”

Kelly looks uncomfortable. “What makes you think there’s something wrong with her?”

“Oh, maybe it’s because the last few assistants you all had me try out were barely competent, and if this one were even half as good as you say, one of the editors would have snapped her up for themselves.”

She sighs. “Okay… she’s a little… abrasive. Disrespectful. And opinionated. And loud. She made Nerys cry, and the head of PR is threatening to quit if we loan her to him again. But she’s a nice person. A _good_ person. Deep down. Somewhere.” Kelly’s shoulders slump. “I’d send her back to the temp office, but they’re short on work offers right now, and she really needs the money because her father’s dying.” She stops at the door. “Brace yourself,” she murmurs.

The Doctor squares his shoulders, prepared to face this she-devil. Kelly throws open the door and walks in, and the figure hunched over a stack of papers looks up.

The Doctor stops dead, jaw slack and eyes wide.

“Oi! Who’s the skinny streak of nothing, Kelly?” a familiar voice barks. “Hey, skinny, quit giving me that boggle-eyed stare!”

Then, he shrieks (which he’ll fervently deny later, of course), “Donna!” and lunges forward to give his old friend a hug.

~oOo~

It’s been one of those days.

Rose had first spent three hours navigating London traffic (with Jake hanging on for dear life) pursuing a transmat signal that had been appearing at random intervals and locations all over the city. Initially, they’d feared it was some sort of scouting mission for an invasion, until they noticed the pattern of locations: strip joints, adult film cinemas, adult bookstores and toy stores, and even a brothel. They’d eventually caught up with the teleporters, a pair of fourteen-year-old boys who’d found an alien device and were using it to sneak in to adult locations. Their only real crime had been to swipe a couple of dirty magazines.

Next, she’d been sent to investigate a UFO sighting that turned out to actually be a weather balloon. Rose has never seen one before, and now realizes why the mistake is so common.

The incident with the wide-eyed fuzzy bunny things that resembled furry basketballs with chainsaw teeth had been really inconvenient — though their fatally allergic reaction to her perfume had thankfully ended that encounter pretty quickly. But not before they’d chopped off a huge swatch of her hair as neatly as any razor.

But this, Rose decides, takes the cake. She’d been pursuing another UFO sighting outside the city limits, tromping around a muddy field looking for evidence, when a beam of purple energy seized her foot and began to pull her upwards. Upside down. And now, she is being hauled towards an ovoid silver spaceship by the most agonizingly slow tractor beam she has ever been caught in (it’s been ten minutes, and she’s still only halfway up) all the while keeping her arms tightly folded over her chest so her shirt doesn’t slip towards her neck and reveal her bra to the world.

Finally, she nears the ship’s hull, and a hatch slides open. She is dumped unceremoniously on the floor, face down. Scowling, she sits up, brushing her hair back out of her eyes (inwardly cringing when she realizes how little of it is left to push back) and is prepared to unleash the full force of an irate Tyler woman upon her captors. Until she catches sight of the alien standing over her.

“Buck? Buck buck buuuUUUUCK!” it tells her coldly.

Rose just stares. It looks for all the world like she’s just been abducted by giant purple chickens.

~tbc~


	2. Rose Tyler vs the Human Pox

**Part 2 - Rose Tyler vs. the Human Pox**

 

As abductions go, it’s relatively quick and painless. They take her to a lab and draw a blood sample, clucking to her in a faintly scolding tone until she realizes they want her to talk so their translators can pick up English. Once the translators kick in, the Flock captain explains their problem to her, asks for Torchwood’s aid, then sends her back to Earth using a beam only slightly faster than the lift beam simply because this time it’s aided by gravity.

She hastens back to Torchwood and makes her report to Pete, who is already making plans to contact the Flock by the time she leaves for the day. Rose debates staying to help, but Pete shoos her off, and she reluctantly agrees. She feels a little more exhausted than usual, but she attributes that to spending nearly an hour suspended upside down thanks to the Flock’s lift beam. So she heads home without even checking the progress of the growing coral.

The Doctor is already at the flat, which is a surprise; usually he heads straight to Torchwood after work to spend time with the TARDIS coral. And then she gets a good look at him. Even in the dim light, she can see the skin around his eyes is puffy and irritated, and his face streaked with tears. At her entrance, he tries to open his eyes, but can only manage narrow slits. “Rose?” he asks uncertainly.

“Are you all right?” she cries.

“Can’t see too well yet,” he sighs. “My vision should be cleared up by tomorrow. Right now, though, you’re just a pink and yellow blur.”

Which she finds interesting, since she’s wearing green, not pink. But she doesn’t say anything.

“I had an interesting day,” he says dully.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“I sort of volunteered us to take a couple of the editors to dinner. Then I saw an old friend. And then I learned about pepper spray,” he says, wiping at his swollen eyes. “Ow,” he mutters, when he realizes that only makes it worse.

“I was abducted by chickens.”

“And then she tazed me.”

“They were purple.”

“ _Tazed_ me! It was just a hug!”

“And the size of horses.”

“Wellllll, it was a long hug, because I was just so happy to see her, and then I may have accidentally grabbed her bum.”

“They were very polite, despite wanting to use me to make human noodle soup for the captain’s sick son.”

“And I may have said something about her being softer than I remember. Apparently that’s rude. And inappropriate. Then she whips out the pepper spray and WHAM!”

Rose pauses in her rant, deciding this is much more amusing. Especially since the Doctor has leapt to his feet and is now re-enacting the whole terrible experience with a throw pillow. “And so there I am, blind, and I trip and fall and grab for the closest thing to me, which is her, and we fall and then my face lands in something soft and squishy and much more inappropriate to touch than bums and then…” he pauses dramatically, “she tazed me.” He pulls down the collar of his shirt to show her an angry-looking mark on his chest.

“It wasn’t my fault I fell on her! It hurt! Felt like birds were trying to peck my eyes out. Big ones. Giant purple chickens, trying to peck my eyes out!” The Doctor blinks when he realizes he’s somehow jumped from his train of thought onto hers. “Wait…” He eyes her blearily as it finally sinks in, and he tosses the now-battered pillow aside. It’s nice to know that purple chickens take precedence over being tazed, she thinks. “You were abducted for what? By _what_?!”

“I was joking about the human noodle soup,” she says. “Though the captain’s son was actually sick. But, yeah. Purple chickens.” She waits, giving him the chance to jump in and tell her everything there is to know about the Flock, from their planet of origin to the number of feathers on their left wing.

Instead, he flops back onto the sofa and stares up at her, and she suddenly realizes he has no idea what she’s talking about. Rose thinks she rather likes knowing more than the Doctor. “So. Purple chickens the size of horses. Tell me about them.” His eyes are alight (though that could just be the irritation), and he leans forward expectantly. 

Rose smiles inwardly. His interests may be a little more human, but deep down, he is still the Doctor. Always eager to expand his knowledge of the universe. She sits down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“They’re called ‘the Flock,’ or at least, that’s how they translate their name. They brought me aboard because they saw me kill a few Frumpers — accidentally, admittedly, since it turns out they were allergic to my perfume, but they were impressed anyway — and figured I was a member of Torchwood. So they asked for our help-“ 

“They saw you kill… what?” the Doctor asks blankly.

“Frumpers.”

“Frumpers. And those are… a cross between a frock and a jumper?” He’s wearing that adorably baffled look he usually saves for when he’s trying to figure out stupid apes and their foibles and is failing miserably. The effect is a little spoiled by the swollen red eyes.

“Frumpers,” she says again. “They’re basically vicious vermin that eat anything in sight. The Flock is after this particular batch because they carry a disease — not fatal or even remotely harmful to humans, the Flock checked — and they’re trying to eradicate them before they spread across the galaxy.”

“Never heard of them.” 

Rose raises an eyebrow. It’s not often she encounters an alien species the Doctor hasn’t met. To encounter two of them in one day is unheard of. “They look like spherical bunnies with round mouths and rotating teeth, like a chainsaw. The young ones roll along the ground using their four dangling paws to push them along. The older ones can float; they produce a helium-like gas that fills internal sacs. They sort of drift around, eating whatever they roll or float into.”

The Doctor just gapes at her for a long moment. Then he bursts out laughing. “This would never happen in our home universe!” he crows. “There, it was Daleks and Cybermen. Here… purple chickens and balloon bunnies!”

Rose combs her fingers through her shorn hair, wincing at how much of her scalp is exposed. “You heard what I said about the _chainsaw teeth_ , right?”

“I also heard what you said about their allergy to perfume,” he says dryly, eyes crinkled in amusement.

“Only when they’re juveniles, according to the files the Flock gave Torchwood. Once they’re mature, their body chemistry alters.”

He dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “Just rupture the gas-filled sacs and they’ll be immobilized, if not killed outright.” His casualness about killing takes her by surprise. Sometimes she forgets this adorably confused part-human Doctor was exiled from his universe for committing genocide.

Rose quickly changes the subject. “Who is this ‘old friend’ who treated you like a self-defense class dummy, anyway?” she wonders. He hasn’t been here long enough to have new friends, let alone old ones. But she likes his use of ‘friend.’

His eyes light up. “Donna is a temp at _The Star_! Isn’t that brilliant? She’s my new assistant!” Then his face falls. “Well, maybe. If I didn’t scare her off when I licked her head.”

“Donna?” A slow smile curves her lips. “Donna Noble?” He’s right; this is brilliant. If she’s anything like her counterpart in their home universe, she’s more than capable of handling the Doctor and his eccentricities. She’d already proven she can defend herself. Befriending this Donna would help ease his loneliness.

Assuming he doesn’t blow by doing something weird, that is.

“Wait… did you say you _licked her head?_ ”

“I had to make sure it was really her,” he says defensively.

Rose rolls her eyes. “You really need to learn that there’s only one place for your tongue: in your mouth.”

His lips twitch as he hides a smile. “Really? I’ll remember that next time we kiss.”

Rose hastily amends, “Okay, there are only two places for your tongue: in your mouth, or in mine. Nowhere else.”

The Doctor opened his mouth again. “And what about-“

“Later! We’ll spend some time figuring out where you can and can’t put your tongue later.”

“Tonight?” he asks hopefully.

“Maybe… Depends on just what you’ve gotten us into. What’s this about a dinner?”

He slumps. “I… might have volunteered us to take a couple of the editors and their spouses out to dinner at Sorrelli’s,” he mutters.

Rose groans. Not only is Sorrelli’s one of the most expensive restaurants in London, it’s also a favorite of the local celebrities — and, therefore, is a favorite hunting ground for the paparazzi. So much for keeping a low profile… She hopes the background she and the Doctor have been slowly building for him is solid enough to stand up to the scrutiny of the tabloids.

Then again, he is one of those tabloid reporters, so at least he should know what to expect. He didn’t seem too concerned, so maybe it was okay.

“And just how did this happen?”

“I went to talk to Greg about Gareth’s column and I sort of blurted out that I was dating you. A woman. And therefore am not gay. When he laughed, I told him I’d prove it. Next thing I knew, dinner at Sorrelli’s.” He gives his hair a frustrated yank. “I could have just said I didn’t want to do the column! Stupid, stupid ego!”

Rose smiles in sympathy. Having a male ego and female hormones did not work to the Doctor’s advantage, that was certain. “So, when is it?”

“Friday.”

Rose grimaces. She’d hoped for something later, after this whole Frumper affair was done with.

“Doctor, why is it so important that no one thinks you’re gay? Would it really be that horrible?” She leans into his chest, head over his heart. “You know you’re not. I definitely know you’re not. Mum and Pete know you’re not, thanks to our little ‘encounter’ in the linen closet after the last Vitex function. So, why not just say ‘no’ to doing the column and let them think whatever they want to think?” She shrugs. “They’ll find out anyway once we start letting ourselves be seen together in public.” She has a horrible thought: what if he’s a bigot? She doesn’t think she can stand it if he is, and not only because she has never tolerated that sort of attitude. The Doctor she knew has never hated without reason, and this version of him, born in battle and cursed with a human’s impulsiveness, would be a nightmare if he found a focus for his hatred.

He just groans, and ruffles his hair. “I don’t know,” he admits, his frustration evident. “Part of it is an ego thing, I think. Part of it is because I love you, and I don’t want anyone to doubt it — this job’s given me a new perspective on celebrity relationships, and I don’t want anyone to question what we have. And mostly… it’s because I’m not who I used to be. Once, I could charge in, take control of a situation, win everyone’s trust — well, mostly - with my confidence, my charisma. And now… I don’t know who I am. People question me, they doubt me… I can’t just win people over with my smile and a wave of the psychic paper anymore. It’s like they sense that I’m different. _Alien_. Which I am, but that was an advantage when I was mysterious and ancient. Now my differences run more towards the bizarre. What advantages do I get from having the occasional… urges to get in touch with my feminine side? Or from having an actual feminine side, for that matter?” He scowls as he tries to organize his thoughts. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t have that control anymore. If I can’t make a couple of editors see that I’m not gay, what chance do I have of convincing others of the truth in a dangerous situation?”

“In other words, you’re one of us mere mortals now, and you’re having trouble coping.” He stiffens beneath her, and she bites her lip. Not up for gentle teasing, then. “Don’t worry, Doctor,” she says soothingly. “This is all still new to you. You’re the cleverest man I know. You’ll figure this all out someday. I have faith in you.”

He laughs softly and pulls her closer. “Ah, Rose… as long as you believe in me, I’ll be all right.” He runs his hand through her hair, then freezes when his fingers encounter the buzzed half of her scalp. “Rose, what happened to your hair?”

~oOo~

Thursday is as slow a day as Torchwood can possibly have, which is fortunate for Rose. She’s not in the mood to deal with her teammates, most of whom can only gape at her newly cropped hair. She’d been forced to chop the rest of it off, so it’s now an uneven tawny cap that sticks up worse than the Doctor’s. She hides herself in the office, spending her time sorting through reported sightings of Frumpers, trying to find a pattern that can help narrow down the location of their nest. It’s a personal vendetta, now; she hasn’t had hair this short since she was six and a boy sitting behind her had amused himself by putting gum in her hair.

And then the world suddenly spins around her, and next thing she knows, she’s throwing up in her office rubbish bin. Reluctantly, she heads down to the infirmary to see Dr. Owen Harper, Torchwood’s resident medic. He’s positively gleeful as he delivers his diagnosis.

“Looks like you’ve caught the Human Pox,” he says cheerfully. “Probably from that Frumper that gave you the partial cue ball look.”

Rose glowers. “Human Pox? Is that what they call it?”

“Nope. They have another name for it, something that translates as ‘That Which Brings Agonizing Pain and Slow Grisly Death by Dissolving the Skin and Liquefying the Organs.’ I thought ‘Human Pox’ sounded better. Much easier to say.”

Rose stares. “The Flock said it was harmless…” she whispers, horrified.

“Don’t worry, it is,” Owen assures her. “The Flock sent their data on the disease and its effect on humans. It’s nothing severe; just some nausea, a sore throat, and a slight fever. Oh, and don’t be alarmed if you break out in a rash, because some blotchiness and slight skin discoloration are apparently normal. And in case you want a second opinion, I can scan you.” She trusts the alien scanner, with its ability to analyze any biological contagion within seconds, more than she trusts a bunch of purple chickens she’d only just met the previous day. The scanner confirms their diagnosis, and Rose releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Skin dissolution and organ liquefication hadn’t sounded like much fun.

“They brought me on board… Owen, could I have infected them?”

“Doubt it. If you were going to be part of a team sent to eradicate a virus, wouldn’t you want to be either vaccinated against or immune to the virus?” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He grins broadly.

“What are you so happy about?” she growls as Owen smirks over the results.

“We now have a contaminated blood sample to work with. With it, I can whip up a vaccine by the end of the day for the rest of the staff. Sorry, love, but I won’t be able to do anything for you.”

With that he sends her home, warning her that she’ll be contagious for the next twenty four hours. 

~oOo~

Thursday at _The Star_ is also mercifully slow, if a little off-putting. Overnight, Donna seems to have realized her future with the paper lies with the Doctor, and has gone from her normal bolshy self to the perfect, obedient assistant, following his requests without question, anticipating his needs, and, most startling of all, remaining totally silent, except for a mumbled apology for her actions the previous day, or to agree with whatever he says — no matter how bizarre. 

The Doctor watches her suspiciously for awhile, wary of possible alien replacement or takeover, but then realizes this is just what humans call ‘brown-nosing.’ Or ‘sucking-up.’ He’s not sure which.

He doesn’t like it. He’d rather have his feisty Donna, the woman who stands up to him, who stops him. The woman who can laugh with him, cry with him, allow him to experience the universe anew through her eyes. He doesn’t want this woman who is so terrified of losing her job that she may as well be a mindless automaton.

He wants her to be comfortable with him, because he has no intention of letting her go now that he’s found her.

So he invites her along to Friday’s dinner.

~oOo~

Rose realizes Dr. Harper might have been a little off in his diagnosis when she wakes up purple. And when the hell had ‘rash’ meant ‘swelled up to twice her normal size’? Her shrieks startle the Doctor, who immediately comes running to her rescue… only to backpedal when he sees her in all her chromatic glory.

“Rose, you’re mauve!” he yelps, his eyes very wide. “And… well… it’s not a good color on you. Makes you look a bit fat, really.”

“Bloody Owen and his bloody alien medical scanner!” she seethes. “Blotches? _Blotches_? Does this look like blotchiness to you?” She waves her purple arm in front of his face, and he pulls back. “’Slight skin discoloration,’ he said! Does this look ‘slight’?”

The Doctor continues backing away, his eyes on her flailing limbs. “Could you not do that? You could still be infectious. Dr. Harper gave me the vaccine last night, but you know Owen; doesn’t always get everything right. Especially when it involves my unique biology, like when he told me that Goroanian wine was safe but it wasn’t, not for me anyway, and I spent the whole night praying to the porcelain god, well, not so much praying as-“

“Doctor!” she snarls. She’s not in the mood for one of his endless babbles. “I’m sick! I have an alien virus! Aren’t you going to, I don’t know, comfort me, at least?” 

The Doctor takes a tiny step towards her and, stretching his arm as far as it can go, gently pats her on the head and murmurs, “There, there,” before snatching his hand back and haring off towards the sink and anti-bacterial soap.

“Some doctor you are!” she yells after him. She mentally crosses the ‘hurt/comfort-doctor/patient’ role-play off her list of fantasies she has yet to try with the Doctor. Apparently he doesn’t have the stomach for it. 

He’s back after a few moments, his hands red from the thorough scrubbing he’d just given them, and his brow furrowed in thought. He studies her for a moment, then frowns. “Rose, we can’t go to dinner with you looking like that.”

“Oh, you think?” she fumes. “I didn’t plan on waking up purple!”

“But…” he whines. “How am I supposed to prove to Greg-“

Rose snaps. She’d been hoping for offers to make breakfast, to stay home and tend to her every need, or at least a ‘how do you feel?’ 

“Get some perspective! Your sexuality is not the most important thing right now!” she snarls. “I keep expecting Oompa Loompas to come through the door so they can roll me off to the juice room!” Later, she’ll feel bad about yelling at him, knowing it isn’t really his sexuality that’s the issue. For now, though, she’s nauseous, she’s itchy, and she’s purple. Sympathy for other living beings isn’t a priority, especially since she can’t even get any sympathy for her condition.

“Do Oompa Loompas exist in this universe?” he asks, intrigued.

Rose somehow manages not to kill him.

But it’s a very near thing.

~oOo~

“Get changed,” she tells him later that evening.

He’s sprawled across the sofa reading a history book, and jumps at her snapped command. The Doctor eyes her purple-skinned form warily and scoots back a little. She’d call him a big baby, except that it has finally occurred to her that he’s had little experience with being ill, and the prospect clearly terrifies him. It’s sort of cute that he has no clue how to deal with the situation.

“Why?” He glances down at his T-shirt and jeans. “What’s wrong with what I have on?” he asks, puzzled. He begins examining his shirt critically for any stains or holes.

 _Nothing_ , she wants to tell him. She loves how he looks when he’s dressed casually, with none of the little feminine embellishments he occasionally adds. “You can’t wear that to dinner.”

“I told you, I’m going to cancel-“

“No you’re not. This is important to you, yeah? You need to go. In fact, I even found you a date.”

He doesn’t look as grateful as she had expected. “Rose, they’re expecting me to show up with you -“

“No they aren’t,” she says.

He ignores her. “And if I show up with some random woman, they’ll suspect I picked her up off the street or something.”

“Trust me,” she says firmly. “By the end of this night, they’ll know you’re Rose Tyler’s man.”

He eyes her suspiciously for a moment, then shuffles off to get dressed. Rose is working on another Torchwood report when he comes out of the bathroom forty-five minutes later.

He looks fabulous in a white version of his favorite suit, silver pinstripes gleaming when the light hits it just right. The shirt he wears is silver silk, with a patterned red tie. The stained red Converses complete the look.

He is wearing make-up, but he’s learned subtlety since his first disastrous experiments. There’s a hint of red lip gloss on his lips, and enough mascara to make his eyelashes devastating. Anyone unaware of his quirks probably wouldn’t even notice.

Who’d have thought a man’s competence in cosmetic use could be such a turn-on?

He smirks and pivots lazily, allowing her to admire him from every angle. “Like what you see?” he purrs.

Oh, God, she likes… Suddenly, Rose wishes they had taken their relationship public, rather than waiting. She would love to show him off to the other society girls, the ones who make snide comments about her mysterious past and her lack of high-class friends and her even more telling lack of a boyfriend.

But that will have to wait. Rose would at least like to be flesh-colored before being seen in public again.

“Just a few more days,” the Doctor says, for once actually grasping the fact that this illness is making her miserable. Or maybe he is simply thinking of his own frustration. Either way, it’s still going to be a long wait. Though she isn’t contagious any more, and the puffiness has gone down. Maybe they could arrange something later… 

He tugs nervously at his tie, which is already askew. Rose aches to straighten it for him, but he’s still skittish about letting her get too close.

Rose sighs and goes back to her report, and the Doctor takes a seat on the sofa, drumming his fingers on the arm’s padding. It suddenly dawns on her that they’ve never gone on a real date before; their desire to keep things private for the time being had limited them to fast food runs and grocery shopping. The Vitex functions don’t count; most of the guests tended to be stuffy business people and politicians, and the events were usually dull evenings of drinking and talking. The lack of media coverage make them safe to bring the Doctor to, but the evenings usually ended either in the Doctor making himself scarce partway through, or the two of them running off to the nearest convenient closet. Definitely not a date! Rose resolves to fix that as soon as possible.

The doorbell rings, and the Doctor jumps to his feet, his eyes very wide, his hands anxiously smoothing the non-existent wrinkles from his suit as he braces himself for what’s to come. Rose wonders what he thinks she’s found for him, and suspects he expects anything from a shape-shifting alien to a clone to Dr. Owen Harper in a cardboard cutout Rose Tyler mask. She’s certain the truth has never once crossed his mind.

“Your date is here.” Rose opens the door and steps back. She really wishes she had a camera on hand, because the expression on his face when he sees the woman in the doorway is priceless.

It’s Jackie Tyler.

~tbc~


	3. The Doctor vs. Jackie Tyler

**Part 3 — The Doctor vs. Jackie Tyler**

“No.” The Doctor’s voice is firm, eyes flinty, arms folded across his chest as he glares as Jackie and Pete Tyler, who are standing in the living room. “Nope. Nuh-uh. No way. Nein, nyet, iie…” he continues for some time, exhausting human languages and moving on to intergalactic refusals. All the while, the Doctor’s expression grows more stormy. The effect is diminished somewhat by the fact that his voice rises an octave with each negative.

“I take it that’s a no, then?” Jackie asks, hands planted on hips. “And here’s me, all dressed up, just so you can soothe your ego. This is my best dress; only wear it for high-ranked politicians and Pete’s rich business associates.” 

“What’s the problem?” Rose asks, holding back a grin. “True, she’s not me, but _everyone_ knows she’s my mum, yeah? They’ll believe her when she says we’re dating.”

“Might even tell ‘em how Rose and I have a close relationship, and that we share _everything_ ,” Jackie says coyly, resting a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and sliding it down his arm.

The Doctor makes an undignified squeak and jumps away. He glances between the two Tyler women, then turns to Pete for help. Pete just shakes his head, leaving the Doctor to get himself out of this.

Rose almost pities him, but winding him up is much more satisfying.

“And why not? What’s wrong with my mum?” Rose demands. Now it’s her turn to plant hands on hips, and the Doctor squirms, clearly unnerved by the similarity between mother and daughter.

“Well, for one thing, she’s old,” the Doctor protests.

Jackie glares. “I’m thirty-nine,” she snaps.

He rolls his eyes. “Jackie, I went to your double’s _fortieth_ birthday. _Four_ years ago. You’re all wrinkled and saggy and-” Rose sees the Impending Slap coming long before the Doctor does, but doesn’t warn him. This time, she thinks, he deserves it. 

“Ow!” he yelps as his cheek and Jackie Tyler’s palm renew their acquaintance.

“I’ll show you wrinkled and saggy,” Jackie hisses.

“Please don’t,” the Doctor begs. “My vision’s only just recovered from pepper spray. I don’t need hysterical blindness!” He manages to dodge the next slap. Barely.

“See if I teach you my waxing technique now,” Jackie snarls. Rose tries not to choke in shock. She doesn’t want to know. She really doesn’t.

The Doctor’s face crumples. “Aw, Jackie,” he whines.

“Obviously, my presence offends you,” Jackie says. She whirls away, and starts stomping towards the door. “C’mon, Pete, I know when I’m not wanted.”

Rose watches the Doctor as he flounders for words. It never ceases to amaze her that, of all the beings in the universe, it’s Jackie Tyler who somehow consistently manages to render the Doctor speechless. She hopes one day to learn that skill.

“Jackie, don’t go!” The Doctor finally yells, after much hair-pulling. It’s probably a good thing that spiked hair is ‘in’ right now, Rose reflects, because there’s no way he’ll be able to tame it before dinner. “It’s… It’s just that… You don’t date your stylist! They _know stuff_ that even a family member or best friend doesn’t. Believe me; I’ve interviewed quite a few of them.” He gives an exaggerated shudder.

“If you’re worried I’m going to embarrass you,” Jackie begins, then stops to consider this. “Maybe I will,” she says, eyes brightening. Rose wonders what sorts of things the Doctor tells her mum but not her. She decides one of these days she’s going to get Jackie alone, get her drunk, and then interrogate her on the subject.

Then again, _waxing_. Maybe she’s better off not knowing.

“Go on, Doctor,” Rose urges. “You might even have fun. Please?” Rose had never envisioned a day where she’d be begging her boyfriend to go out on a date with her mum. “For me?” She bats her eyelashes. Oh, yes… she’s hit a whole new low.

The Doctor moans theatrically but, realizing he’s not getting any sympathy, finally mutters, “Fine, I’ll go.” He yanks on the long black coat Rose had found for him, tosses her a stormy glare, then stalks out of the flat, Jackie at his heels and already badgering him for the latest in celebrity gossip. Rose figures it won’t be long before they’re giggling like school girls together — the Doctor and her mum usually get on fine; he’s just horrified about the whole concept of _dating_ Jackie Tyler.

Once the door has shut behind them, Rose turns to her stepdad. “Are you sure you’re all right with this?” Rose asks. “I mean, I know pigs have a better chance of sprouting wings than anything even remotely romantic happening on this date, but once the tabloids get wind of this, there will be a scandal.” Rose smiles. “Mum would never forgive them if there wasn’t. And given how much of a drama queen the Doctor is…” Oh, she can’t wait to see the news tonight!

Pete snorts. “It’s been too long since the Tyler family made the news. You know how the tabloids are; if we don’t give them something to write about, they’ll either make something up, or do some actual research and find something we really don’t want them to. This way, we have some measure of control over them. Let them think we’re your standard dysfunctional rich family. We know otherwise.”

“Nothing standard about our dysfunctions,” Rose agrees, lips quirked.

“Besides,” Pete grins, “the uproar those two are going to cause will divert everyone’s attention from the real fireworks tonight, and should keep him busy enough that he won’t know we’re planning something until it’s too late.” He studies her carefully, taking in the still-purple skin. “You up for this? If you want to stay home and rest, we’ll understand.”

“I’m fine,” she sighs. “The swelling has gone down and the nausea and fever are gone. Besides, the Flock know me and want me there.” Then she runs her hand through her cropped hair. “And I’d like a little bit of revenge, too; that wasn’t a cheap perm and dye job they ruined.” She smiles to show she isn’t really that shallow. Usually. “Don’t worry, I’m a trained professional, and the Flock have done this dozens of times. Everything will be fine.”

~oOo~

Donna gives herself one last once-over in the mirror. She looks good, she decides, after critically examining her ginger hair for any out-of-place strands. Ready for a night at one of London’s most expensive restaurants, where she may even run into someone famous. She spares a moment to fantasize about running into a rich, handsome celebrity who instantly falls madly in love with her, marries her, then funds the research that cures cancer just in time to save her dad. Her shoulders slump. Yeah, like that would ever happen. She sighs, snatches up her purse, and heads downstairs. 

It doesn’t feel right, having a night out when her dad is on his death bed. She wants quit her job like her mother had, to spend every last precious moment with him.

But she can’t. She needs this job, desperately, and if it means having to go to dinner with the skinny streak of nothing she now works for, then she’ll do it. And at least she’ll be able to boast to her friends that she had dinner at Sorrelli’s. Not that she sees her friends much, anymore. Her social life had been the first thing to go when her father fell ill.

Her mum and grandfather are in the kitchen, arguing over something that Donna assumes has to do with her, from the way they immediately fall silent when she enters.

“You look beautiful, darling,” Wilf says

“You really shouldn’t be going out tonight, Donna,” Sylvia says insistently.

“Oh, let her have some fun, Sylvia,” Wilf scolds. “How long has it been since she’s had a night out? A month? Two? You’re the one who’s always telling her she needs to get out more.”

Donna’s puzzled, to say the least. Her granddad is right; usually her mum can’t get rid of her fast enough. Even her father has told her she spends too much time fussing over him, and not enough time on herself. “It’s for work,” she says.

“I know, but…” Sylvia’s brow furrows. “There’s something about tonight… maybe something I saw on the telly…” She thinks for several moments. “I can’t remember what,” she says at last, “but I’m sure it was important.”

Donna wouldn’t know; she hasn’t had much time for television lately, between helping take care of her ailing father and working. She sighs. “My new boss insisted I tag along for this dinner he’s having with the editors. Not my idea of fun, but…” she hesitates, wondering how much to tell her mother. She could lie, but Sylvia Noble knows her daughter too well, and would ferret out the truth within minutes. “I need to stay on his good side,” she says in a rush. “I really screwed up on my first day I was assigned to him.”

Sylvia heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?”

Donna winces. She knows she should be more tactful and think before she speaks, but she can’t help it. She wishes her mum wouldn’t bring it up every single time she screws up. At least this time, though, her mouth isn’t to blame. “Actually, I sort of used my pepper spray on him.”

Sylvia doesn’t say anything, just closes her eyes and rests her forehead in her palm. Donna wonders if she should be worried that her mum has come to view that sort of thing as normal behavior for her.

“And then I tazed him.”

This gets a reaction. “You what?!” Sylvia screeches.

“Well, he… he’s a little touchy-feely — not in a bad way, Mum! — and it took me by surprise, is all,” Donna says sheepishly. She decides to leave out the part where she thinks he’d licked her hair. That _has_ to have been her imagination, right? “It was my fault, anyway,” she sighs. “He fell after I sprayed him, and he sort of landed on me wrong, and I panicked. He was just so mortified about the whole thing that I realized it was an accident and…” she trails off. There’s really no way she can come out of this looking good, short of lying and making claims of sexual assault.

“Where did you even get a tazer?” Sylvia demands.

“Er,” Donna hedges. Her eyes dart toward Wilf, who is trying to slip away unnoticed. Sylvia follows her gaze, and her frown deepens.

“You bought her a tazer?”

“It’s dangerous out there,” Wilf defends himself. “What with the economy, street crime’s up. And then there’s them aliens.” Sylvia groans, and Donna winces inwardly. While she finds her grandfather’s interest in all things extraterrestrial to be harmless, and even a bit fascinating, her mum thinks it’s a waste of time, and Donna can see Sylvia is ready to launch into another tirade about ‘them aliens.’ As Sylvia gears up for her ‘alien’ rant, which all of them have memorized by now , Wilf winks and nods towards the door. Donna grins and takes the opportunity to escape, stopping in her father’s room long enough to give him a quick peck on the cheek and a whispered ‘good-bye’ before running out of the house to catch her bus.

~oOo~

Torchwood’s underground parking lot is a flurry of activity when she and Pete arrive. Every Torchwood team has been called in for this operation, and Rose is secretly impressed. She’s never seen all of the field teams assembled in one place before, and is surprised by just how many there are. Surprised, and a little alarmed. 

The Frumper nest is located in an empty house in Chiswick — specifically, the pool in the house’s backyard. The population had begun with one single Frumper who’d hitched a ride in with an extraterrestrial tourist, and the pest had fallen into the pool when it hit its breeding cycle, producing hundreds of offspring from one asexual spawning. They had approximately two months before the offspring were mature enough to spawn

Unfortunately, they need to end it now. There have been more and more reports of ‘bloated rat’ sightings, spreading beyond the Chiswick borders, and complaints of property damage caused by their teeth. There have also been cases of the Human Pox reported, and Torchwood has been working overtime to keep the contagion out of the news. They’ve kept much of the disease under control, however, by having mandatory ‘flu shots’ for everyone in the neighborhood to inoculate them against the disease. Under the guise of ‘animal control,’ they’ve cruised the neighborhood and done what they can to capture or kill any Frumper they find, but they need to do a surgical strike to get rid of them completely, and they need to do it before the next Frumper breeding cycle produces hundreds more of them.

Rose hops out of Pete’s plain ‘work’ vehicle, ignoring the stares and whispers her purple skin cause. She makes a beeline for fellow teammate Jake Simmonds, who she spots talking to the captain of the Flock, Buckbuckbuuuck. 

Jake is wearing a Kevlar vest, a helmet and visor, arm and leg guards, and a bandolier of perfume bottles. Rose stifles a giggle; the pale pink liquid ruins the badass look she knows Jake is trying for. At her expression, he arches his eyebrow and says, “’Least I’m not purple. I really hope that vaccine Owen whipped up works,” he says, eying her warily. 

Rose rolls her eyes. “I’m not contagious anymore, anyway,” she mutters. She’s starting to feel like a leper, and half expects people to call her ‘unclean’ and start pelting her with rotten vegetables. 

“This is yours,” Jake says, handing her a box. Rose opens it, finding a set of her own Kevlar armor, along with a crossbow and pouch of bolts. She immediately begins to don the armor.

“So why isn’t the Doctor here?” Jake asks.

“Had to do something for work,” she says dismissively. Jake frowns disapprovingly. Rose knows he isn’t impressed with this version of the Doctor, thinking him shallow and flaky, a mere shadow of the man he’d met briefly but heard so much about from Rose and Mickey. Rose doesn’t tell him the truth: she doesn’t want the Doctor involved in Torchwood’s messier missions.

She doesn’t want him there to see what will essentially be a massacre. He’ll either try to stop it, which the Flock would never permit, or worse, take part in it. She’d made a vow to keep an eye on this Doctor, and she intends to keep it. He’s emotionally confused enough already; she doesn’t want to add the guilt of a slaughter to his already overburdened conscience.

About a dozen members of the Flock are assembled, their comically purple feathers clashing with the rather sinister glossy black armor they’ve donned. Their wings are swept back, revealing the short, powerful forelimbs that had been hidden beneath, with hands equipped with long, dexterous fingers and razor-tipped claws. Several of them are assembling weapons in preparation, and Rose blanches at the sight. At first glance, they may have looked like something out of a cartoon, but they mean business.

“Just how big a spectacle are you expecting Mum to cause?” Rose asks weakly. “I doubt that ‘Vitex Wife Caught with Younger Man’ trumps ‘Purple Chickens with Harpoon Guns Rampage Through Chiswick.’”

“Holographic imagers,” Pete counters. “You won’t be more than a shadow to anyone who passes by — though, hopefully, there won’t be anyone out and about.” His lips tighten in a grimace. “The board authorized the use of subliminal messaging to keep everyone at home.”

Rose shudders. This world’s inhabitants have spent so long relying on ear pods and downloads directly to their brain that they’ve become more susceptible to outside influences — it had been a simple matter to broadcast a subliminal message through the telly suggesting everyone stay in doors for the night.

It’s another reason Rose doesn’t want the Doctor involved. She doesn’t want him to see just how far Torchwood is willing to go to get the job done.

The signal to move out is given, and as one, the teams head towards the waiting SUVs. For the Flock, two lorries have been procured for their transport. The Flock members file into the waiting lorries with militaristic precision, their obvious professionalism a striking contrast to their whimsical appearance.

Rose hops into the cab of the first lorry, which is being driven by Jake. He attempts to make conversation as he steers the vehicle towards Chiswick, but after Rose responds with one too many noncommittal grunts he falls silent. It’s just as well; she’s having enough trouble keeping herself focused on the mission. Her mind keeps straying to the Doctor and his ‘date’ with her mum. She feels guilty using the Doctor’s insecurity to distract him, but she and Pete had agreed it would be best not to involve him in a situation where brutality is the only answer.

She starts thinking about ways to make it up to him later, then shakes her head vehemently, forcing herself to think about what lay ahead, running over the details of the mission in her head.

The cleansing mission consists of three fronts. 

The Flock ship, which is quicker and more maneuverable than the ever-present zeppelins, will patrol the sky, dragging adhesive nets beneath it to ensnare as many air-born Frumpers as possible. The ship is more ovoid than the zeppelins, but in the dark, hopefully no one will notice the craft’s alienness. Torchwood’s personal mini-blimps had been dispatched to assist in the netting.

A strike force, lead by Jake, will raid the nest, armed with the perfume that had proved fatal to the immature Frumpers, and crossbows to take out the air-born Frumpers that hadn’t been able to escape the nest.

The bulk of the force, along with the Flock volunteers, will patrol the streets, taking down any Frumpers they find, using crossbows, nets, perfume, and, apparently, really big harpoons. 

It’s a far from perfect plan, but the Flock has made it work for them before. The Frumpers’ round bodies make it difficult to squeeze into tight spaces, and the floating aliens have no control over where they drift, and are at the mercy of the air currents. The majority of those that have left the nest will be out in the open. Pete predicts the next week will be spent making sweeps to pick off Frumpers that had been missed.

Their task is made easier by the tech the Flock was sharing with them: tracking devices that could home in on Frumper DNA. They’d chosen to share it with Torchwood _after_ Rose had spent more than a day trying to find the main nest based on sightings, of course. It was a small comfort to know her guess had only been off by a street.

The lorry parks at a children’s playground, and Rose jumps out, immediately heading towards the back of the lorry to release the Flock. She pauses to double check the quiet streets for observers, and finds none. The streets are empty of people, and even all the pets have been taken inside. It’s dark as well; a quick glance shows most houses have their curtains tightly drawn. A shiver runs down her spine at just how effective the subliminal messages are on the populace. It’s a disaster just waiting to happen. 

But tonight isn’t the night to worry about mind control and the havoc it could wreak on the British population. Tonight, she has to focus on inflatable rabbits. Rose wonders at what point her priorities had become so askew.

The rest of the Torchwood teams arrive, but even their combined clamor doesn’t draw anyone out of their homes. The Flock members cluck in approval at Torchwood’s efficiency.

Rose’s partner, Buckbuckbuck (not to be confused with the captain, Buckbuckbuuuck), stands patiently as she slings the pouch of bolts over the feathered neck, then ducks down so Rose can throw her leg over the broad back and clamber astride. Rose isn’t comfortable with the prospect of riding a sentient being like a beast of burden, but the Flock are faster than humans and have limited flight capability. It’s the job of the human/Flock pairings to patrol the streets from the rooftops.

Rose settles into place, clipping the short strap on the back of the alien’s armor to her belt for a safety line. Then she accepts her crossbow from Jake, who gives her a thumbs up before moving off.

It isn’t Rose’s weapon of choice, but the gas within the Frumpers’ floatation sacs is highly explosive, and the heat from a bullet is more than enough to ignite the volatile gas. (Of _course_ they’d be explosive as well as having chainsaw teeth and being disease-ridden, Rose thinks disgustedly.)

Rose quickly checks over the weapon and, finding it satisfactory, snaps a bolt into place. “Lock and load,” she says, striking an appropriately heroic pose. She just wishes it wasn’t spoiled by purple skin which coordinated so perfectly with a giant chicken’s.

~oOo~

Dinner isn’t going well, to put it mildly. After the initial awkwardness of Greg, his wife Ellen, Kelly, and the ten-minutes-late Donna telling him that his date was most definitely not Rose Tyler (as if he couldn’t have figured that out for himself,) Jackie begins to talk about how the Doctor’s an old family friend, and how he’s such a _dear_ who helps her with shopping — look at the earrings he’d helped her pick out! Doesn’t he just have the _best_ taste?

It’s true, but this really isn’t helping the case for his sexuality. Even Jackie realizes this and quickly changes tack.

Unfortunately, Jackie decides that correcting this involves telling stories about him. Embarrassing ones. Embarrassing, alarmingly _true_ ones. Stories that make him sound like he has the IQ of a small child. Did she really have to tell the story about him and Tony hunting worms in the garden? Or how he’d manage to turn his clothes pink the first time he’d attempted laundry? It isn’t his fault there’s so much to learn about being human and he’s only had a month to work at it. To make things worse, she somehow manages to not include Rose in any of these stories, which doesn’t help much in proving they have a relationship. He’s starting to sound like a sexy-but-stupid rich woman’s pet cabana boy. He knows he should be able to seize control of the conversation, but for once, his gob is failing him.

Worse, she’s speaking _loudly_ ; more loudly than usual for Jackie, that is. It isn’t long before everyone in the restaurant is pretending not to be hooked on the Vitex wife’s every word, and more than a few of them are tabloid reporters and paparazzi the Doctor recognizes. The Doctor is puzzled; there aren’t enough celebrities present tonight to justify them coming out in force, but here they are, like sharks waiting for someone to chum the waters. 

Something’s up, but the Doctor can’t figure out what.

There’s been one good thing about this night, however; Donna’s actually speaking to him in more than agreeable monosyllables. At one point, she’d even laughed at something he’d said, a real laugh, not a forced you’re-funny-‘cause-you’re-the-boss laugh.

That’s not his most pressing concern, however. During one particularly humiliating anecdote (where did they all come from? He’d only been in Pete’s World a month!) he excuses himself to use the loo, desperate for somewhere private where he can mull things over.

And he’s had way too much wine. Jackie Tyler does that to a man.

He sighs in relief when he ducks into the short hallway that leads to the bathrooms. He can still hear the dull roar of conversation, but at least he’s out of sight of prying eyes.

Something definitely doesn’t add up, he decides as he attends to business. Someone had to have alerted them that Jackie Tyler was having a night on the town. Someone who knew even before he did. Jackie thrives on attention, and he wouldn’t put it past her to have been the one to make the call.

But what if this isn’t all about Jackie? What if this is about _him_? He frowns, wondering if he’s being paranoid. Then his eyes narrow. Jackie Tyler is many things, but she’s not stupid. Helping him prove that he’s dating Rose would be as simple as flashing a few photos and launching into her ‘wanting grandchildren before she dies’ speech. Instead, she’s drawing the maximum amount of attention to him, telling stories meant to leave him wrong-footed, and giving him no chance to recover. She’d also taken it upon herself to make sure he always had a full glass of wine throughout the dinner, and he’s a bit buzzed as a result. If he has much more, he’ll be no good to anyone.

He’s been set up. And there’s only one person who could have done it.

Rose.

Rose wants him out of the way, so she’s thrown something at him that she knows he can’t handle. He’s spent nine hundred years running away from this kind of attention, and now he has no clue how to deal with it.

Something’s up. Something to do with Torchwood, he guesses. Furiously, he yanks at his zipper, ready to storm out and interrogate Jackie. But the zipper stops only a third of the way up, and a quick glance down reveals why. The Doctor groans.

His tie is stuck in his zipper. Isn’t this just _wizard_? Stuff like this never happened to him when he was full Time Lord.

Scowling, he tugs at the zipper, but it doesn’t move. Muttering a few choice Gallifreyan curses, he yanks harder. All this does is pull at the tie, and he growls ineffectually. 

Still muttering, he leaves the loo after a quick glance to make sure no one is in the short hallway. He keeps one hand hovering over his open fly in the hopes he can make it to his table and pull on his coat before anyone notices. He doesn’t want to unleash the Oncoming Storm with his fly open, after all. It would ruin the effect. He doesn’t get very far down the hall before he’s intercepted by a waiter, who glances downward with a frown. The Doctor wonders what sort of social _faux pas_ he’s made now, then blushes when he realizes where he’s holding his hand could be horribly misconstrued.

“It’s not what it looks like - my tie’s stuck in my zip,” he sighs. “Er… I don’t suppose you have any idea how I can get fix it without ruining the tie? It’s just… I really like this tie.”

“Have you tried wiggling it?” the waiter asks, sounding bored.

“Yes!” Lord of Time, him — of course he’d tried everything he could! “I can’t seem to get it up,” he says. “But there’s some give when I try to pull it down — I just can’t get a good enough grip. Maybe, if you go down and give it a tug…” The waiter stares. “You know, on your knees, so you’ll have better leverage. Try pulling it downward. Maybe that’ll pop it free.”

The waiter shrugs, kneels down, and obediently gives a tug.

“Oi, that’s not my zipper!” he yelps. The waiter rolls his eyes and pulls downward, ignoring the Doctor’s pleas not to ruin his clothes.

Finally, with a tearing noise that makes the Doctor flinch, the waiter manages to yank the zipper downwards. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” Donna’s voice ruins his moment of triumph, and his head whips up, hoping against hope that Donna is actually across the room, that she isn’t standing there in the hallway, watching.

Nope. It’s _much_ worse.

He’s attracted a crowd. In the front are Greg, Ellen, Kelly, Jackie, and Donna, all staring at him with mouths agape. Behind them, a camera flashes, and he swallows a groan. He can just see the headlines now: ‘Vitex Wife’s Secret Lover Caught in Compromising Situation with Waiter.’ Greg looks dismayed, and the Doctor realizes he’s in for it. Not because he’s making a scene, but because he’d made sure there was a clause in his contract that _The Star_ could not directly feature him in their news. Even though the situation is perfectly innocent, Greg’s missing out on what looks like a juicy scandal. Maybe if the Doctor can calmly explain…

“This isn’t what it looks like!” the Doctor yelps, voice pitched higher than he would’ve liked. So much for calm explanations.

“It isn’t?” the waiter sounds disappointed.

“Are those women’s knickers?” Donna asks. “Red, satiny, lacy women’s knickers?”

The Doctor glowers at her. “You can see them for yourself; you don’t have to describe them to the rest of the restaurant!”

“Yes she does,” someone in the crowd mutters.

“Don’t worry, they’ll probably all see the pictures tomorrow anyway,” Donna snorts. The Doctor groans; he thought he’d seen a few flashes from cameras, but had hoped they were pointed towards someone else.

With all the dignity he can muster, he pulls his slightly-mangled tie from his waistband and yanks up his zipper, then stalks off towards his table. Dinner is over; he’s too flustered to salvage the situation.

Another problem his Time Lord self would never have.

Shoulders slumped, the Doctor takes care of the bill and follows the dinner party out of the restaurant. He mumbles to Greg that he’ll have an idea for the column by Monday. He barely notices when first Greg and his wife depart, followed soon after by a sympathetic Kelly. The paparazzi follow at a distance, and he makes an effort to ignore them. Instead, he focuses on the problem with Rose.

Upon hearing that Donna had come by bus, Jackie immediately insists that they take her home in the limo. The Doctor groans inwardly; he needs to get to Torchwood as soon as possible, and the detour to Chiswick would be quite a delay. He debates catching a taxi, but a quick glance through his wallet shows that dinner had taken all his money, and his credit cards were currently in Rose’s care, after one too many shopping sprees had resulted in credit card bills high enough to buy a small country. And if her role is to keep him away from Torchwood, then there’s no way Jackie will loan him the money to get there. As Jackie whips out her mobile to summon the limo, the Doctor turns towards Donna. At least one thing has gone right; Donna seems to have relaxed in her attitude toward him, and is now gazing at him with a very unprofessional smirk. In spite of the situation, the Doctor wants to grin; this is more like the Donna he knew back in the other universe. 

“That went well,” Donna says. She sounds like she’s fighting to hold back her laughter.

The Doctor decides not to dignify that with an answer. Apparently, she shares her alternate’s love of deflating his ego, and he refuses to rise to the bait. 

“Looks like it’s off to the gay clubs for you,” Donna continues. 

He sighs. He can’t stand clubbing; he’d went to one once, to interview a diva he’d suspected of using mind control (turned out her fans were just vacuous by nature) and, while he’d admired the fashions on display, he’d suffered from a sensory overload that had given him nightmares for a week afterward.

“Brilliant,” he says forlornly. “Alcohol, drugs, and men trying to pinch my ‘cute bum.’” He’d gotten a lot of that at the club, too, from drunk, amorous women. With really well-manicured, really sharp, nails. He’d been sore that evening. Rose had failed to show any sympathy as he’d lay sprawled face-down on the sofa, a bag of ice on his rump. 

“’Bout the only thing you have to pinch, isn’t it?” Donna snorts. A giggle finds its way past her pursed lips. “But it’ll be great research, right?” The giggle threatens to become full-fledged laughter. “Kelly warned me you liked your research to be hands-on.”

“Of course,” the Doctor says, his eyes on Donna, “since it’s for _research_ , I’ll need my assistant to come along as well.”

Donna abruptly stops laughing.

 

~tbc~

I know, a bit silly, yeah? One of the difficult aspects of this series is that I keep hitting upon ideas that would be interesting to explore further, but not in a humorous context. I’m fighting the urge to turn this into a dark, serious series.


	4. Donna Noble vs. the Frumpers

**Part 4 — Donna Noble vs. the Frumpers**

 

The limo interior feels very small and stuffy, even though it’s just him and Donna in back. Jackie has elected to sit in the front with the driver, no doubt sharing every detail of the disastrous dinner with the chatty chauffer. Donna is reclining on the seat across from him, examining a beer bottle she’d pulled from the limo’s mini-fridge. She seems determined to enjoy every luxury the limo has to offer. He wonders how long it will take before she opens the sun roof and sticks her head and shoulders out. It had only taken him three minutes to give in to the urge during his first limo ride. 

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re telling the truth.” 

“Oh?” the Doctor says distractedly, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. He used to be able to save the universe with little more than his wits; now he can’t even get through a simple dinner without screwing things up. 

Worse, he still hadn’t told them he didn’t want to do the column! One simple little phrase, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ Six words. He’d brought down a government with six words. This should be easier, surely? 

“That you’re dating Rose Tyler,” Donna says. “Mrs. Tyler knows you entirely too well; with all those sly little digs, she reminded me of a mum putting up with a daughter’s boyfriend she doesn’t entirely approve of. Believe me, I’m an expert on the subject.” 

“Mmm.” It wouldn’t have even taken six words; he could have just said, ‘I can’t do it.’ That was four. Or, better yet, a simple ‘no.’ Then he wouldn’t be in this mess. But no… he has to have a gob that likes to use twenty words where one will suffice, none of which actually answer the questions posed. 

“John? Are you even listening?” Donna’s voice is exasperated. “I’m trying to offer you support, here,” she grumbles. 

Her use of his assumed name snaps him out of his brooding. “Why are you calling me ‘John’ now?” Before, when she’d bothered to speak to him at all, she’d called him ‘Mr. Smith,’ ‘skinny,’ or ‘hey, you.’ 

Donna shrugs. “I figure once you’ve seen a man’s satiny red girly knickers, formality flies out the window.” 

Good point. “Doctor,” he mutters. 

“Pardon?” 

“My friends call me the Doctor,” he says. “I’d like it if you did as well.” 

“You really are a nutter, aren’t you?” Donna rolls her eyes. “Most people are less formal with friends. Does Rose call you Doctor?” she demands. 

“Actually, yes. It is my name, after all.” 

“Your parents named you ‘Doctor?’” She studies him for a moment. “You’re serious! Were your parents mental or something?” 

The Doctor quirks an eyebrow at the woman from whom he’s inherited his human genes — albeit another version of her in another universe. “You have no idea.” 

Before Donna can further question him, the chauffer slams on the brakes, and Donna tumbles forward with a yelp, followed by a rather impressive string of invective. The beer splatters all over her dress, and she mutters about what she’s going to do to the driver’s manhood if her dress is ruined. The Doctor blanches; he’s become rather sensitive and sympathetic to the whole ‘manhood’ issue ever since he’d become part human. And Donna is very descriptive. 

The Doctor slides open the partition and sticks his head through to speak to the driver. 

“What’s going on?” he demands. 

“No idea,” the driver says, his voice slightly worried. “There’s some sort of blockade, and it looks like a war zone outside.” 

The Doctor flung open the door and jumped out, Donna at his heels before he can warn her to stay inside. The driver is right; furry bodies litter the street, crossbow bolts sticking out of their sides. Everywhere he looks, he can see the damage caused by their vicious teeth: deep pits chewed into the tarmac, gaps in brick walls, rents torn into the parked cars, houses with missing chunks of siding… Something squishes underfoot, and he looks down at the body of the Frumper he’d just stepped on. “Ew,” he mutters, scraping the sole of his red Converse against the tarmac to clean it. Then he crouches down to examine the mangled body, brow scrunching in thought. 

Floating bunnies with chainsaw teeth… Rose had clearly downplayed the threat they’d presented, he realizes. Or he hadn’t really been listening. Either way, he’s missing out on what looks like a very serious problem. 

“It’s Torchwood,” Jackie moans behind him. “Pete told me they had something big going down tonight, but he didn’t tell me where.” The Doctor turns and sees she’s gotten out of the limo as well, and is surveying the scene with horror. 

“And he asked you to keep me busy?” the Doctor snaps. 

Jackie can’t meet his eyes; she drops her gaze to the pitted tarmac and says quietly, “Pete and Rose both. They asked me to give you something else to think about, and it sounded like a good way to get back at you for those twelve months…” 

“Oi! One little miscalculation…” he moans as he straightens, brushing grit from his knees. 

“What’s going - ” Donna begins. The Doctor ignores her and shoves her back into the limo, blocking the door so she can’t jump out again as he shuts it behind her. Donna doesn’t immediately protest, likely assuming they’re going to charge the (flimsy unguarded) blockade, Hollywood-style, and drive to the rescue. 

The thought has occurred to him, but he immediately dismisses it. The limo may be like a tank, with its reinforced siding to prevent possible abduction/assassination of an important CEO and family, but it would be defenseless against the Frumpers. Very short-sighted of the limo manufacturer, really; shouldn’t they be prepared for anything? He’ll have to send a strongly worded letter to the manufacturer. 

Not that he’s any sturdier, really. Rose is always admonishing him to remember he’s far more vulnerable than he used to be, and he’s of little use to her when armed only with his devastating charm (wasted on non-sentients like the Frumpers), his unmatched brilliance (woefully underappreciated, he feels, and totally useless if he gets eaten before he can help), and his half-finished sonic screwdriver, which he’d brought along in case he needed to escape from Jackie via the restaurant’s back door. 

“I’ll take care of this,” the Doctor sighs. “Won’t be the first time I’ve had to clean up after Torchwood. Take Donna to a hotel and go home, Jackie. I’ll make sure Pete and Rose survive long enough for you to ream them out later.” 

Relieved, Jackie gets back into the limo, and it showers him with gravel as it performs a hairpin turn and drives off. Scowling, the Doctor brushes off his silver-on-white suit, wishing for the brown pinstripes that didn’t show dirt quite as much. 

“This isn’t the time for vanity, skinny,” a strident voice says from behind him. 

The Doctor whirls to find a slightly rumpled Donna beside him. “You were in the limo! I locked the door!” He was pretty sure he’d even engaged the child proof lock. 

She glares at him. “I climbed out the sun roof,” she snaps. 

“The limo was moving!” he says, staring at her with awe. Even he hasn’t jumped out of a moving limo yet… Though if it messed up hair that badly, maybe he’ll give it a pass. 

“This is my home, and I’m not leaving my family to whatever did this!” She folds her arms across her chest, her expression daring him to just try and send her away. 

The Doctor sighs, not ready for a clash between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. “All right,” he says. “But it could be very dangerous. Stay with me and do exactly as I say.” 

“Why?” Donna challenges. 

“Huh?” The Doctor blinks. He’s used to automatically assuming authority. Clearly, no one has told Donna this. “Because I’m the expert here!” 

“You’re a _gossip columnist!_ This isn’t some wild star-studded shindig, it’s… it’s…” 

The Doctor considers this. “Actually, this is much tamer,” he says, thinking of a post-Oscar party he’d attended that had been a little on the wild side. “No drugs, alcohol, groupies, or paparazzi here. Just…” he drops his voice to a hushed whisper, as if volume can make his next word sound more sane, “aliens.” 

“Aliens?” she asks in a choked voice. Donna looks like she’s debating between running away or tackling him to the ground and pinning him down until the authorities come. The Doctor’s a little worried by this; Donna’s already proven she’s more than capable of incapacitating him. 

But then her eyes suddenly widen and she points at something behind him. Aware that this could be some diversionary tactic that would let Donna flee, or worse, the Doctor turns anyway. 

“What’s that?” Donna cries. 

A spherical, furry object roughly the size of a beach ball drifts lazily towards them. With its wide, cartoony eyes and comically tiny feet that protrude from the sides, it’s almost cute. Until it opens its mouth, revealing a blur of rotating teeth. _Ah_ , the Doctor thinks. _So that’s what a Frumper looks like. What sort of gases keep them afloat? How do they maneuver around? Wonder how the teeth move like that? I’d like to get a closer look…_ He stares at it for several seconds before realizing he’s about to get that closer look — it’s hovering in front of his face, and he blinks as its spittle splatters across his cheek. 

The Doctor fumbles for his sonic, which has become entangled with his key ring (that never would have happened in his proper suit pocket!) and finally manages to whip it out — only to find that Donna has beaten him to the punch. 

With a whoosh of escaping gases, the Frumper whips through the air in erratic arcs. The Doctor ducks when it passes too close to his head, and he frantically probes the area for bald patches as the last of the gas leaks out and the Frumper collapses inward. It lands on the ground in front of Donna with a splat, virtually flat but for the stubby, still-twitching paws and the rolling golf ball eyes. “Yech,” she mutters, taking a step back. “That was…” 

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, equally at a loss for words. Well, that wasn’t quite true; he could think of several: _anticlimactic_ , for instance. Or _easy_. But he’s fairly certain Donna won’t appreciate them. 

Donna stares down at the deflated Frumper. “I just poked it,” she says, brandishing the blunt nail file she’d pulled from her purse. “They’re that easy to kill?” 

“Apparently so,” the Doctor says, feeling vaguely disappointed. It was a bit difficult to look impressive when the enemy had all the resiliency of a bubble. “But there are lots of them,” he adds. “And they’re very bitey.” By way of demonstration, he prods the Frumper’s mouth with a stick he’d picked up. The creature’s teeth are no longer rotating, but they’re sharp enough to cleanly slice off the tip. Donna pales. “That’s the cause of all the damage. We’ll need to find travel as quickly as possible to avoid these things.” He takes her hand. “Are you up to a little running?” he grins, bouncing on the soles of his trainers as he prepares to launch himself forward. 

“I’m not running in these shoes,” she says. 

The Doctor stops and glances down at her feet. The four inch heels are impressive, true, but he’s had companions run in similar footwear without complaint. 

Then again, said companions seemed to sprain their ankles an awful lot. He suddenly realizes there’s a direct correlation between inadequate women’s shoes and ill-timed dramatic falls. “All right,” he says, studying the vehicles parked along the street. “We’ll just take this one.” He heads over to a navy blue SUV and pulls out his sonic screwdriver. 

“We’re going to steal a car?” Donna chokes. 

“Borrow,” the Doctor corrects. “It’s important to recognize the distinction. I intend to return it. Eventually. It’s either this, or you can run barefoot through Chiswick.” 

Donna looks as if she’s seriously considering this, and while he admires her strong moral code, they don’t have time for this. So the Doctor hastily adds, “You might step in a few Frumpers on the way, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. They seem to be only slightly squishy when dead, and I’m sure stepping on the razor-sharp teeth doesn’t hurt that much. You’ll probably only lose a few toes, and then your wounds will become infected from running down the dirty streets, and you might lose your legs as a result,” he shrugs, “but I’m sure you’ll be fine.” 

Donna just glares at him, but climbs into the passenger seat without further protest. He starts the vehicle with the sonic and steers it so he’s facing the roadblock. Then, with a manic grin, he revs the engine. 

“We’re crashing through the roadblock?” Donna asks dubiously. 

“Yup!” the Doctor grins widely. 

“But… it’s just a couple of sawhorses and a rope. Wouldn’t it cause less damage to our ‘borrowed’ vehicle if you just get out and move them?” 

The Doctor gives her a wounded look. “Where’s the fun in that?” he pouts, as he floors the accelerator. The SUV shoots forward, smashing the flimsy blockade, and the Doctor can’t help but whoop in delight. He’s a bit less enthusiastic when his head hits the roof every time one of the tires hits a pothole or runs over a Frumper corpse.

~oOo~

It doesn’t take them long to locate Torchwood’s base of operations; it’s the only part of Chiswick that shows any real activity, as teams arrive to restock their ammo. The SUV pulls up next to a large group surrounding Pete Tyler, who is speaking into his mobile and gesticulating wildly. 

“What’s happening?” the Doctor demands. 

Pete jerks his head up, but rather than showing annoyance at seeing his plan to divert the Doctor has failed, he looks relieved. “It’s the Frumpers — Rose told you about them, right? It seems that there are more of them than we projected, and they’re a bit more voracious than expected. They swarmed and ate one of our resupply vans. No one was injured, but we lost a lot of ammo.” 

“They actually attacked?” the Doctor says slowly. “I thought these things just drifted around and ate whatever they came into contact with.” 

“That’s what the Flock told us,” Pete says. He runs his hands through his thinning hair (and the Doctor feels rather smug that it doesn’t look anywhere near as ruffleable as his own afterwards) and says grudgingly, “I could use your help. I need to get this taken care of before they eat the entire neighborhood.” 

There’s a burst of static from the radio, and Pete snatches it up. He listens to the report, barely audible over the static, and his frown deepens. “There’s a fire,” he says, slamming the radio down on the SUV’s hood. “Some of the Frumpers exploded, and two houses are already burning.” 

“They _blow up_?” Donna yowls. 

Pete ignores her. “And two of my agents were injured dragging the people out of the homes. Nothing serious yet, but it could take time, what with — ” Pete clamps his mouth shut. Then he sighs. “What with people not being inclined to get out on their own.” 

“Why aren’t they leaving their homes?” the Doctor asks, bewildered. 

Pete’s lips curl in a snarl. “Subliminal commands,” he says harshly. “Broadcast earlier today, suggesting that everyone stay indoors tonight.” 

“Who authorized that?” the Doctor demands, his voice a dangerous growl. 

“President Jones,” Pete says grimly. 

“So they’re just going to let themselves burn?” the Doctor says, aghast. 

“Theoretically, if their lives are in danger, survival instinct should override the programming. But some people are more susceptible than others, and the commands are rooted more deeply. I’m going to call the teams and have them clear out the houses.” 

Their best option is to stop the fire before it can advance, rather than herding mentally-sluggish people out into the streets in a convenient all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. And, he realises immediately, there’s a way to kill to birds with one stone. 

The Doctor picks up Pete’s mobile and shoves it into his hand. “Call the fire department! The police! Ambulances!” he snaps. 

“They’ll just end up a buffet for the Frumpers,” Pete protests. 

“Use your brain, man! If the Frumpers are attracted to large, noisy objects, they’ll go after the emergency vehicles, yes? Which means…” the Doctor trails off, hoping Pete isn’t as thick as this operation is making him seem. 

“Which means the majority of them will be in one location,” Pete finishes, raising his mobile. 

The Doctor feels a bit guilty using fire trucks and ambulances for bait, but they need to end this quickly. He waits patiently as Pete makes the call, but when he hears Pete give the address, his brow furrows as he tries to figure out why it sounds familiar. 

He suddenly becomes aware of Donna tugging at his sleeve. “Doctor, my house is on that street!” 

He freezes, his gaze darting between the visible glow and Pete Tyler. Did he stay and help Pete, perhaps minimizing casualties, or protect Donna as she went after her family? 

“I need to help my family!” Donna says urgently. “My dad — he can’t leave the house on his own! I have to go!” He watches as, despite her earlier reluctance, Donna kicks off her high heels and prepares to sprint off towards her home. 

The choice was a bit of a no-brainer, really. Pete barely listened to him anyway, and if Donna was one of those casualties, he’d never be able to live with himself. The Doctor doesn’t hesitate. He snatches a longbow and a quiver of arrows from the back of one of the Torchwood SUVs and slings them over his shoulder. He glances over towards Pete, who is now on the radio directing the Torchwood teams to rendezvous with the arriving emergency vehicles and escort them to the fire/slaughter ground. “Let’s go,” he says, sprinting a few metres in the wrong direction before spinning around and heading the right way, grabbing Donna’s hand as he raced past her and pulling her behind him. 

They speed past several returning Torchwood teams, and he can’t help but slow down and gape when he sees the non-human members. 

“Oh, _brilliant_! They _are_ big purple chickens!” the Doctor laughs. 

Donna ducks behind him, staring at them over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose we could go rescue my family now and bird watch later?” she says, her voice small and her eyes huge as she takes in the sight. 

The Doctor blinks. “Right. Family.” 

They actually manage to make it down a few more streets before the Doctor is again sidetracked, this time by a purple and yellow flash heading towards the conflagration, unaware of a cloud of Frumpers following just behind them. His Rose, astride one of the Flock members, running into the fray to save the innocents, careless of the danger she was putting herself in. 

She’d learned from a master, but he really wished she wouldn’t put it into practice quite so often. 

“Rose!” he cries, and is about to lunge forward when Donna grabs his collar. 

“Oi! You have the attention span of a puppy, don’t you? Don’t you remember? My family?” she prods. “You said you’d help them!” 

As they watch, one of the Frumpers darts towards Rose, tearing her Kevlar vest. They can hear her panicked cry from two blocks away. 

The Doctor glances between Rose and Donna, torn. 

“Go after her, Doctor,” Donna says softly. “My house is just over there, and I don’t see any of those floating buggers around. I should be able to help my family — and anyone else who needs it.” She gives him a brave smile, but he can see her trembling. 

He doesn’t want to leave her on her own, but she’s right, there don’t seem to be any Frumpers in the immediate vicinity, and the fire’s far enough away that she should have plenty of time to evacuate her home and those closest. 

The Doctor fishes through the contents of his definitely- not-bigger-on-the-inside pockets, and pulls out the thin metal tube. His new sonic screwdriver is still a work in progress, but it should be adequate for their needs. 

“Take this.” He presses the sonic screwdriver into her hands. 

Donna eyes it skeptically. “Please tell me that’s not a vibrator.” 

The Doctor stares at her blankly. “It has a setting for vibration, but you won’t be using it,” he assures her. _What is it with humans and vibrating tools?_ he wonders. Jackie had asked him much the same thing when she’d first seen his sonic, and had looked horrified when he’d given her much the same answer. “This setting emits a frequency that drives away most animals — I doubt the Frumpers are any different. This setting should unlock any doors. And this one should disrupt the subliminal programming long enough for you to persuade everyone to evacuate. Just make sure it’s on the right setting and hit the button, and you’ll be fine.” 

At her panicked look, he smiles reassuringly. “You can do it. You’re brilliant, Donna Noble. Go save your family from the fire. Keep everyone close together, and use the sonic screwdriver to keep the Frumpers away. I’ll be along to help guard them as soon as I can, and it shouldn’t be too long before Torchwood and the fire department come along and clear the area.” 

He watches as Donna swallows and nods, gathering up her courage to run through what is essentially a war zone. Then he unslings the bow from his back and races down the block towards Rose. 

~oOo~ 

There’s a stitch in her side as she finally reaches her door. Gasping, she grasps the knob, which refuses to turn in her hands. Donna stares at it, feeling betrayed. Her mum had locked her out! And her keys are in her purse, which she dimly remembers leaving on the seat of the borrowed SUV. She pounds on the door and yells for several moments, before remembering the device the Doctor had given her. Repeating his instructions like a litany, she checks the setting and aims it at the door. The sonic warbles, and the door clicks. Donna chooses not to dwell on why the Doctor has a hi-tech lock pick as she prepares to rush inside her home. 

Something thuds against her family’s parked car, and Donna automatically whirls around, holding the sonic screwdriver before her without changing the setting. It’s still emitting a buzzing sound, and when she aims the blue glowing end at the Frumper, it shrieks and blows up. 

As does the car. 

Donna stares stupidly for several moments at the burning mass that had once been the Nobles’ car. Then she turns off the screwdriver and stares at it, wonder just what the hell kind of freaky games her boss and his girlfriend use it for. She also wonders just how she’s going to tell her mum that she blew up the car using a vibrator/lock pick and a fuzzy, malevolent balloon. She decides to blame it on the fire. With that, she shrugs and rushes inside to evacuate her family. 

~oOo~ 

This isn’t going well, Rose realizes as she swipes a sooty hand across her sweat-soaked forehead. She’s chosen to disregard the recall order, instead directing Buckbuckbuck towards the fire, to help in any way she can. There’s a small crowd of people milling around the street aimlessly, not quite seeing the danger, and Rose is shooting down any Frumper that gets too close. 

These are the people who evacuated their homes at the first sign of the fire. Part of her is relieved that that part of the subliminal programming is working. Another part of her is annoyed; they’re still dazed, and they’re wandering into the line of fire. As for the people for whom the subliminal messaging didn’t take, or missed the messages completely, well, they somehow had the presence of mind to ignore the danger and the people that need help, choosing instead to record everything with their mobiles. 

Worse, they’re attracting the Frumpers. Lots of them. And any that drifted too close to the fire and the super-heated air tended to explode, which doesn’t help matters any. 

“The Frumpers are usually not this volatile,” Buckbuckbuck comments at one point, as they evade a particularly nasty explosion. “Something they’ve consumed here must be affecting the gases they produce.” The chicken alien shakes its head sadly. “You primitive cultures and your non-organic building materials,” it sighs. 

Rose barely refrains from telling the alien just how advanced Earth is when it comes to chicken-based meals. Instead, she chooses to take out her irritation on the Frumpers and reaches into her pack to grab more bolts, only to have her fingers close on empty air. 

She’s out of ammo. 

Worse, Buckbuckbuck is out of harpoons as well, and had been patiently awaiting Rose’s decision to return to base to collect more. She’d been so set on rushing over to help with the fire that she hadn’t given ammunition any thought. 

“We’ll have to go back - ” she begins, when suddenly a Frumper swoops out of a cloud of smoke and snags her Kevlar vest in its teeth. Rose cries out and struggles to free herself from the vest, but the Frumper has already chewed a hole in the tough fabric all the way to Rose’s shirt. Unable to reach far enough back to pierce it with the razor-sharp claws, Buckbuckbuck slaps at it with a wing, but the Frumper’s teeth are tangled in the fabric and it won’t let go. 

And suddenly the Frumper is gone — along with her Kevlar vest and a good portion of her shirt. Rose gapes for a moment and turns to find it impaled on a still-quivering arrow buried in the brick behind her. She tracks the trajectory of the arrow backwards, and can’t help but grin at what she sees a block away. 

The Doctor is standing there, his pale suit gleaming in the firelight, his long black coat flaring out behind him. His hair is standing up in agitated tufts, and the reflected firelight makes his eyes seem to glow. He’s already notching another arrow, and has the shaft of a third clenched between his teeth. He grins around it when he sees her watching, then looses the arrow into another Frumper. 

Rose thinks he’s never looked hotter.

~oOo~

With the majority of the Frumpers converging on the fire trucks and ambulances , they’re sitting ducks to the re-supplied Torchwood/Flock teams, as well as the aerial nets. Some forty-five minutes later, most of the Frumpers have been brought down, and the fire crews brought the blaze under control. There’ll be Torchwood teams cruising the area under the guise of animal control for the next couple of weeks, but they’re confident they’ll have the infestation taken care of by the end of next week. 

The damage caused by the Frumpers will take longer take care of, and the Doctor wonders just what sort of cover story Torchwood will come up with. He’s thinking that ‘nuclear explosion’ is the only rational, non-alien, non-drunk uni student explanation. 

He finds Donna standing with her family, her hands curled protectively around the handles of her father’s wheelchair. “The fire never reached your home,” he tells them. “There’s a little damage from, er, debris,” the less said about the Frumpers, he thinks, the better, “but you’ll be able to go home tonight.” He offers them a smile, which Sylvia returns with a scowl. 

“No thanks to that lot,” she snaps, glowering at the fire engines a little way down the street. “We had no warning, we could’ve all died in there. And they arrived too late to save our car.” Donna starts guiltily, but her mother doesn’t catch it. “We were lucky to all get out when we did.” 

“It’s all thanks to Donna,” Wilf says. “She got all of us out, and the neighbours as well. Scared them aliens away with that metal thing, too. She kept us all safe.” 

The Doctor beams. That’s his Donna, he thinks. Loud and brash, but with a heart of gold. 

“They weren’t aliens, Dad. And she was almost too late,” Sylvia sniffs. “If she hadn’t been out at some fancy dinner, we could’ve taken the time to bundle Geoff up properly and drive to his sister’s place.” 

“Now Sylvia,” Geoffrey Noble chides, “a little fresh air won’t hurt. And Donna did a lot of good.” He pats his wife’s hand, then smiles up at his daughter. “I’m proud of you, honey.” 

“Hmph,” is all Sylvia says. She pushes Donna out of the way and begins to wheel Geoffrey away, with Wilf following along behind after giving the Doctor an apologetic look. 

“She doesn’t mean to be rude,” Donna says. “She’s just worried about Dad.” She watches them go, clearly wishing she could go with them. Instead she turns towards the Doctor, visibly bracing herself for what she says next. “Doctor,” she says hesitantly. “What really happened? There were those… things! Those flying things with teeth! And purple chickens! What jus happened here?” 

“They were aliens,” he says. The Doctor had hoped to ease Donna into his world. Maybe introduce her to a few of the benevolent aliens he knows hiding out amongst the humans, acclimate her to the fact that they exist before dragging her into the inevitable dangerous situations. 

Really, he should know better by now. 

“Sort of like intergalactic rats,” he adds helpfully. 

“Rats?” Donna bellows. “Rats! Rats don’t destroy half the neighborhood! Rats don’t fly, or eat cars, or explode!” 

“I said, ‘sort of,’” the Doctor says sheepishly. “Rats did spread the plague, though. Wellll, their fleas did, anyway. Bit more devastating than what happened here. This is nothing!” 

“This ‘nothing’ is my home.” Donna plants her hands on her hips and glares at him. The Doctor squirms. He seems to be getting this reaction a lot from the women in his life lately. “Err…” He rubs the back of his neck, then tugs his ear for good measure. He’s saved the trouble of ruffling his hair by Donna relaxing her stance, pinning him with a look, and saying, “So. Aliens. Deal with them a lot, do you?” 

“More than you’d think,” he says cheerfully. “Lots of aliens in the entertainment business. Like Jimmy Stone — wellll, he didn’t start out as an alien, but he was taken over by one. You’ll meet quite a few of them when working with me. Don’t worry, not all of them are body-snatching slugs; some of them are quite nice.” At her panic-stricken look, he swallows, suddenly afraid he could lose this woman he so desperately needs as a friend. “You… you will keep working for me, won’t you? You’d have a permanent position with me, not a temp one, and I might even be able to get you in as my assistant at Torchwood as well. You’d have two paychecks. Two!” He’s aware that his voice is reaching dangerous levels of squeakiness, but he doesn’t care. He gazes at her beseechingly and continues, “Not all aliens want to take over the world or eat everything in Chiswick. I’m an alien — wellll, mostly — and I’m harmless, right?” Oops. He hadn’t meant to blurt that bit out, but once his gob was going, it tended to run away from him. 

“You’re… not kidding, are you?” Donna says faintly. 

The Doctor smiles weakly. 

“You’re an alien,” she says flatly. 

“Half. Ish. Long story. But, yeah.” 

He continues giving her his best, most pleading puppy dog look, the one that usually ends with him and Rose in bed. Oops; maybe he’d better take it down a notch. Ending up in bed with Donna could be awkward… 

But Donna fails to fling herself onto him and start ripping off his clothes, which is both a relief and a bit ego-deflating. “You don’t have to decide anything right now,” he says quickly. 

“Torchwood,” Donna says suddenly. “You mentioned Torchwood. They’re the ones who did this, right? You work for them?” 

Seeing where this is going, the Doctor hastens to say, “I do part time consultation work for them; mostly identifying alien species and tech. I don’t organize operations and I had nothing to do with this.” 

Perhaps he should do more, he thinks. If he’d been involved with this from the very beginning, would things have turned out this badly? Well, maybe. Events did have a tendency to go pear-shaped whenever he was involved, but usually they were heading that way anyway before he got involved and he couldn’t be held accountable for that! 

“Hmph,” is Donna’s only response. Then she grabs his arm and starts hauling him towards the crowd of Torchwood operatives. “I’d like to talk to whoever _did_ plan this,” she says firmly. “I want to give him a piece of my mind. And somebody owes my family a car.” 

The Doctor hides a grin. He really wants to see this. So he takes her hand, and begins leading her towards Pete. “That’d be Pete Tyler. I’m sure he’ll be willing to listen to any grievances you have.” 

“Is that an alien, too?” Donna asks, stumbling to a halt and tightening her grip on his hand. The Doctor scans the crowd to see who she’s referring to, then realizes she’s pointing at Rose, who is speaking with a group of her teammates. 

“Nope! Completely human, is Rose.” Momentarily forgetting their previous goal, he changes direction and makes a beeline towards her. “C’mon, Donna! I want to introduce you to the Vitex heiress herself, Rose Tyler!” He drags Donna behind him, ignoring the woman’s indignant cries in his eagerness to get to Rose. 

“That’s not a human, that’s a Smurf!” Donna protests. 

“Smurfs are blue,” the Doctor corrects absently. “Rose is purple.” He studies her battered figure with its mangled armor and torn clothing. “If anything, she looks like my character on _World of Warcraft_ ,” he muses. He eyes her consideringly. “It’s rather sexy, actually.” Then he blinks. “Don’t tell Rose I said that!” he yelps. 

“That you think she’s sexy? Most women _like_ that sort of thing, dumbo,” Donna says. 

“That I play WoW,” he mutters. “As a scantily-clad purple woman.” 

“So you like to ogle barely-dressed pixels with proportions that defy nature. How’s that make you different from any other bloke?” 

“Actually, it’s the outfits I like,” he says sheepishly. “Rose would never let me wear anything like that in public, so I have to do it vicariously.” 

Donna just stares. “You really _are_ an alien, aren’t you?” 

Fortunately, he’s spared any more embarrassment by Rose, who turns and smiles when she sees them. “Everything sorted?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” she says softly. “’cept for our cover. Think they’d buy the out-of-control-block-party excuse?” 

His lips twitch slightly at the thought. “Why didn’t you ask for my help?” he says, tone faintly scolding. 

Rose squares her shoulders and lifts her chin defiantly. “Because the Flock are exterminators, and the Frumpers are mindless pests they’re determine d to eliminate at all costs. This could have only ended in a slaughter.” She suddenly droops. “I didn’t want you to have that on your conscience,” she whispers. 

He sighs. Sometimes, he wants to rip open the walls to their home universe, just so he can kick the Time Lord Doctor’s arse for making Rose believe she has to babysit him. “So you thought you’d bear that cross instead?” he chides softly. “I may only be a month old, physically, but I’m more than capable of making my own decisions.” 

Rose leans against his chest. “I know,” she says dully. “I just… I want you to be able to start over, to live a life without death and destruction.” 

He laughs softly. “Do you even know me, Rose Tyler?” he says. “Without alien invasions to keep me busy, I’d be blowing up household appliances out of boredom. Plenty of death and destruction there,” he grins. 

“Yeah,” she says, looking vaguely alarmed. He decides now is not the time to tell her that he’d tweaked the toaster earlier that morning… 

The fire has drawn the usual crowd of onlookers, many of which are more interested in the purple Vitex heiress than the firemen working to bring the blaze under control. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see people whip out their mobiles and take photos, but he doesn’t care. After all, the money they’d make selling the photos would at least be some compensation for tonight’s disaster. He gathers Rose in his arms and tenderly kisses her. 

“No hiding that we’re a couple now,” he murmurs into her ear when they part. 

“Don’t want to,” she whispers back. She buries her face in his chest, and he rests his chin atop her head as he rubs her back soothingly. 

Over the sound of the crowd, he can hear Donna giving Pete Tyler, Vitex of CEO and husband of Jackie Tyler, a piece of her mind. And Pete, despite being accustomed to his wife’s vocal outbursts, is cringing beneath the awesome fury of Donna Noble. 

The Doctor takes one last look at the devastation and sighs into Rose’s cropped hair. _President Jones, hmm?_ he thinks, eyes narrowing as he took in the smoldering homes. He’d taken down one Harriet Jones already; should he make it two for two? 

~oOo~ 

It isn’t until the next evening that things settle down enough for them to talk. Rose senses he’s still disappointed in her for not asking for his help, and she’s kicking herself for keeping him in the dark. She’d wanted to protect him, yeah… but how many times had she been angry at him for doing the same to her? She also suspects he’s more than a little embarrassed about how the dinner went; her mum had called her the moment the Frumper operation was over and filled her in on all the juicy details. Rose figures she’ll give him a week before she starts teasing him about the waiter. 

He’s sitting on the sofa, idly thumbing through one of the morning’s gossip rags. Not surprisingly, there’s a picture of them together on the cover. Rose plucks it from his fingers and studies the photo. It had been taken immediately after they’d kissed; the Doctor had the slightly dazed expression and ruffled hair that he always sported after a particularly good snog. 

She’s going to have to find a better copy of that picture; he really is adorable post-snog. 

She flips through the pages, finding the article about the events of the previous night. She skims through it, and sighs with relief. Fortunately, the photos are black and white, and there are no mentions of purple skin, alien chickens, and balloon rabbits from hell, memories of which having all been removed from the eye-witnesses, thanks to Retcon. There is a passing reference to the property damage, and Rose is disgusted by the casual dismissal. Sometimes she hates living in a universe where who she’s shagging is more important than disasters. 

“Didn’t even mention last night’s dinner,” the Doctor says smugly. “We’re much bigger news.” He doesn’t mention the destruction. Later, she knows, he’ll hold someone accountable for it, and she has a good idea who. Like her, though, he’ll pretend that nothing’s bothering him. 

“Only because they’ve been waiting for _years_ for me to appear in public with a man I’m obviously in a relationship with. I’ve been a very uncooperative spoiled heiress, what with refusing to date rock stars or get drunk in clubs or cause major scandals. Least this’ll stop the rumors about me and secret lovers and sex clubs.” She wrinkles her nose distastefully. That last has a bit of truth to it, but she’d gone as a Torchwood agent, not out of any burning desire to go. 

Okay. Maybe a little desire. Or a lot. But she’d been single at the time, and it’d been awhile since she’d had a little fun. 

“Mum’ll be jealous that I upstaged her,” Rose jokes. 

“I think in this case, Jackie will be very glad not to have her name connected to a man who flashes his women’s knickers in a restaurant.” He sighs and runs his hand through his tufted hair. 

“Don’t worry… these people are nothing if not persistent. Sooner or later, they’ll connect the two events, and then you’ll have even more exposure. Literally.” Women’s knickers… what had he been thinking, anyway? With a suit that tight, he shouldn’t have worn anything that could create a panty line. Rose is an advocate for going commando. “Was dinner with my Mum really so awful?” 

“Only because she wasn’t you,” he says softly. “At least she forgave me for putting up a fuss, at any rate.” He brightens. “She’s going to teach me about waxing this Sunday.” 

Nope. Still don’t want to know, Rose decides. 

“What about the editors? Do they still think you’re gay, then?” she grins, tongue peeking out between her teeth. 

“Nope. Bi. In a very open relationship. Kelly suggested I rename the column ‘Straight Up With a Twist.’” He arches one eyebrow. “Somehow, I seem to have become the Captain Jack Harkness of this universe. Which isn’t so bad, I suppose.” He shrugs. “They still want me to do the column, but just until they find another writer qualified to take over. My clever plan worked,” he boasts. 

“Or they got tired of your whining,” Rose snorts. 

“Who says that wasn’t part of my clever plan?” He pouts, his lower lip jutting adorably, and Rose can’t resist planting a kiss there. 

“And what they think, it doesn’t bother you any more?” she asks when they finally come up for air. 

He gives her a rueful smile. “I realized there are more important things to worry about than what other people think. Wellll, most of the time, anyway. When there’s a life or death situation. And since you, Rose Tyler, are jeopardy friendly, I think I’ll there’ll be quite a few of those.” She smacks his shoulder lightly. 

He lightly brushes her skin, which has paled to a soft lilac hue. “I’m sorry I didn’t spend any time taking care of you,” he says regretfully. “Not much of a doctor, am I?” 

“No… but when it comes to being _the_ Doctor, you’re brilliant,” she grins, tongue between her teeth. “Just you wait; when it’s your turn to be sick, I’ll show you how to play doctor.” 

“Not happening,” he grins. “I may be part human, but I still have superior Time Lord biology!” 

Rose smirks, remembering how his so-called superior biology has handled hangovers, food poisoning, and an unfortunate incident in which he’d eaten a Trrrugian dung beetle (it had been his own stupid fault, really; he’d been trying to lick it and accidentally inhaled). He’d shown a definite superiority in projectile vomiting. 

“You know,” he says, his voice suddenly low, sensual, “if you do want to ‘play’ something, I’ve got just the game.” 

Rose perks up. He rarely makes suggestions, preferring to let her take the lead in the physical aspects of their relationship while he struggled to follow along. He’s still learning to adjust to his hybrid body, and it’s lead to some rather awkward moments. But he’s a fast learner, and Rose has no doubt that one day, he’ll be the dominant one in their relationship. She can’t wait. 

She leans in close. “What sort of game?” she breathes. 

“Watching you ride around on your noble mount, with your clothes all ripped to reveal your gleaming purple skin — never thought I’d say that - and your hair in a tangled disarray, you looked so wild, feral, even. And to see you in action with that crossbow, protecting the innocents from the evil alien menace…” 

Caught up in his flowery narrative, Rose doesn’t bother to correct him. “Go on,” she whispers. It’s not often that she sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, and she finds it rather flattering. 

“So fierce, my Rose,” he murmurs, running his fingers down her cheek. “You looked like a warrior princess. No… a _goddess_. And it made me want…” he pauses significantly. 

“Yes?” she’s close enough now that her body is pressed to his, and she’s staring up into his eyes. 

“It made me want to play _World of Warcraft,_ ” he says, a wicked gleam in his eyes. Before she can recover from her gape-mouthed astonishment, he pulls away from her, causing her to fall sideways on the sofa, and sprints for the computer. 

With a frustrated yowl, Rose throws a sofa cushion at his retreating back, and feels a small measure of satisfaction at hearing it smack into the back of his head and make him yelp. “Git!” she yells after him, and resigns herself to a night alone with the sonic screwdriver. 

~fin~ 

Apologies to anyone with any knowledge of biology; the Frumpers pretty much defy logic, and it makes my inner scientist cringe. You have no idea how long I spent trying to come up with things like anatomy, breeding cycles, mating habits, etc. to make them seem like a realistic species. Then I realized it was impossible, chucked it all out the window, and decided that if anyone asks, I’ll play the ‘they’re an alien species!’ card. I think I’ll hide my Bachelor’s degree in Biology in shame. 

I’m not sure what’s next for this series. I’ll probably do Romantic Entanglements, the ‘alien sex pollen’ cliché story, which I had wanted to do in time for Valentines Day , but obviously, that didn’t happen. Also, I can’t not write a something about the Doctor and Donna going to a gay strip club. It has to happen. 

The WoW reference is entirely my brother’s fault.


End file.
